Paleface

PALEFACE

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THft
« MELTING-POT *

By

WYNDHAM

LEWIS

LONDON

CHATTO & WINDUS

1923

PRINTB* IN UltKAT BRITAIN
BV T 4ND A 4 ONsI A III > L1I>
AT JIIK IMVI-RsITY Pill ss
b DIN HI KCill

PREFACE

P ART II of this essay was written during a
visit to the United Stales (summer 1927):
siiK*e it#> first appearance in Enemy So. J it
lias been somewhat modified and other material has
been incorporated in it. Tlv* pari entitled ‘A Moral
Situation 5 and the passages coming beneath the
lulling A Model Melting-pot 5 have been written
during the last few months, and are published here
for tin* first tune.

For w T hut our white skin is worth, symbolically or
otherwise, it is in America that its destinies are to-
day most clearly foreshadowed : the essential un^
versahty of the problems provided for the Palefaces
of America by the mdian factor m Latin America,
by the Negro in North America and the West Indies,
and by the proximity of Asia to the western shores
of the United States, makes the ir attitudes in faee of
them of some moment to Europeans. And though
there is no White Man’s Burden in Europe at present,
the isolation of Europe is rather artificial; and so,
politically, even, the* cpiestions lightly touched upon
in this book are not insignificant. In other respects,
humanly, and artistically, there is an inexhaustible
fund of simple amusement m consciousness of pig-
ment. Colour is not perhaps so fundamental a
thing as form, but it is, beyond dispute, m many
respects of more immediate importance to men.
Gentlemen prefer blonde's, for instance — that w r as a
question of pigment , and what a popular subject it
proved ! But gentlemen prefer, as far as their

PALEFACE

own persons are concerned, sunburn and a certain
swarthiness. How fymnctte, however, would the
masculine mind suffer gentlemen to become, in a
search forOie virile? — is it possible for gentlemen to
be too ‘ dago 9 and too ‘dark ,? And then there must
be a certain number of blond gentlemen.

But ultimately whiteness is, in a pigmentary
sense, aristocratic, pefnaps — the proper colour for
a ‘gentleman and blackness irretrievably prole-
tarian. May not this be an absolute, established 1 m
our senses? Then the dispute about cuticles would
be seen to be another facet of the general assault
upon privilege. Whiteness of skin if, like ermine, it
is a symbol of rank, must be suspect to the democrat .
The most humble Babbitt possesses something en\i-
able, to which, besides, intellectually and socially,
he has no right — namely his ‘pale ’ face. Bui I need
not insist: colour is not only controversial, it is for
the human being of symbolical importance — it is
able to dw r arf stature, put intelligence in the shade,
challenge quartermgs: pallor and divinity are quite
possibly m some way associated m our human eyes

WYNDHAM LEWIS

CONTENTS

PART I

A * MORAL SITUATION*

•1. TIu* Future of the Palt face Position page 3
2. If the Redskin were in our Position 4

* 3. ^TIk* Etlues at the Rasis of the Colour

Question 7

4. The Cause of ‘God and the People ’ 8

5. Passing ‘the point beyond which there

seems no longer to be either good or e\ il ’ 10

6. ‘Every man both by law and common

sentiment is recognized as basing a
“suum” ’ 12

7 Our World has become an almost purely

Elftiial Place 15

8. Esprit de Peau 17

9. IIow sou must beware of too much sprit

de pean' It)

10 The While m Lin same Roat as t he Hlack 22

11. The Paleface, that "negation of colour,’ as

seen by Du Bois 27

12. The Black, and the Paleface Widdlcclass

Democratic Ideal 48

18. A German Vision of Black rmu* White 40

14. White Phobia in France 52

15 The Effect of the Pictures of the White

Man's World upon the East 58

1C. Final Objections to me as ‘Champion’ 67

Conclusion 70

vn

PALEFACE

PART II

PALEFACE

«

Introduction page 97

Suction I. Romanticism and Complexes
1. The Paleface m cives Ihe Dubious Pre-
sent of an ‘Inferiority Complex* 118

2 While Hopes with a ‘Complex’ 111

8. The opposite v Supi norit v Complex' ••

tlirust at the same lime upon the Un-
willing Mack • 11G

k The Nature of Mr, Mencken's Responsi-
bility 118

5. Wlial is 4 Change ’ or 4 Protore ss,' and ai r

they One or Many? 119

0 From White Settler to Poor City- White 124

7 "Aimncana’ of Mencken 127

S. ‘Complexes’ as between Whites 187

9. The American Rnby 189

10 Was Walt Whitman the Fatlur of t lie*

American Rabv ? 140

11. The Healthy Attitude ot tin American

to Ins " Rabvlon ' 1 12

12 Sherwood Amleison 148

18. Th< KssentialRomantieismol theRetum

to tlie 4 Se\aire’ and the ‘Primitn e’ 111
1 k Possessed by ‘a Dark Demon’ 1 4G

Sec tiun ll : The ‘ Inferiority Com pi ex ’ or
in * Romantic White, anl> Student
Suicides

1. Romance oil its Last (Physical) Legs 149

Vill

/ CONTENTS

2. The Consciousness of One Branch of

Humanity is the •Annihilation, oi
Another Branch page 153

3. When the ‘Consciousness’ or Sout of a

Racc.is Crushed, the Race Collapses 155

4. Dr. Berman and the Suicide Epidemic

• among the Whites of the United Slates 1 57

5. Races similarly rumc/1 l>v the White

• Man 101

6. Behaviourist ‘ Summer Conversation ’ ICG

7. # Race or Ideas? ICO

Section III: ‘Love? Wiiat IIo! Smell-

ing Strangeness’

1. ‘We Whites, creatures of spii it.’-- D II.

Lawrence 174

2. Mr. Law rcnce.i Follow ci of the Bergson-

Spcngltr School 17C

3 Spengler and the ‘Musical’ Conscious-
ness 178

4. Communism, Feminism, and the Un-

conscious found in the Mexican Ind-
ian by Mr. Lawrence 180

5. The Indian a ‘Ditliyranibic Spectator’ 184
G. The Under- Parrot and t he Over-Dog 186

7. Evolution, a la Mexicamc: (genre cata-

clvsnnque, a la Marx) 187

8. Race or Class Separation by means of

‘Dimension’ 192

9. An Invitation to Suicide addressed to

the White Man 193

10. ‘Spring was coming on fast m Southern

Indiana’ 197

IX

PALEFACE

• |

1 1 . ‘ Torrents of Spring 5 ‘ page 200

12. The Dread of Stxual Impotence 203

13. The Manner of Mr Anderson 201.

11. ‘Rrfltal Realism’ turn the Sophistica-
tion of Freud 207

15 The Black Communism ol Anderson 200

10 ‘Whul ho* Smelling Strangeness’ 211

17 Tlit* - P<»( lie’ Indian 212

IS The Mississippi and the Manufacture!* 21 1*
10. Passages Irom Poo) H htfr !?I0

20. The* Conti adiet ion between the Com-

munist Kmotionalitv of Mr. Anderson
and Ins impulses to countei the
Machine Vge 210

21. White \SentimentaliU 222

22. l I \ms1i I was a Nigger" 223

23 "The* Kid 225

21. The* Fanfods 232

25 •(Jnc , is J and the Noble Redskin 233

20. Machine s emits Men 235

27. Ilenn For«l and the 'Pool White ’ 230

Conclusion

1. The* While Machine and its Complexes 238

2. 4 Interim it} / and njtlulriwd 4 Rack <o

Nat in e ; 239

3. The Revolutionary Roek-dnll and the

Laws of Time 242

4 The ‘Jump’ from Noa-Nos* to Class-

Wiii 214

5. How all Backwaid Steps lia\e to be

represented as Feu ward Steps 247

x

CONTENTS

0 A Working" Definition of the ‘Senti-
mental 1 page 218

7. Every Age has been ‘a Machine Age’ 249

8 What is ‘the West 1 i * 252

9. The Intellect ‘Solidifies 1 (The Argu-
ments ad\ anced here ui tin lr relation
. to the Thomisl Position) 253

10. Tlie Necessity for a Ncjv Conception of

•“the West, 1 and of ‘tlic Classical 1 255

if. IIow the Black and the White might

# li\ c and let liv e 257

12 The pait Race lias always played m

Class 262

13. Black Laughter in Russia 263

14. White Laughtir 269

A Final Proposal A Model Ml lting-Pot 273
Appendix JMoTiiL.it India 289

Index 301

XI

I’AHT I

A MpiiAL SITUATION ’

A - MORAL SITUATION 1

§ 1. The Future nj the Paleface Position

N OW that mv essay Paleface is to appear
almost # mtacl as pari oi this book, I hope
by what 1 shall say in tin* opening pages to
make it impossible tomisintcrf)i el lis cbift too much.
• I have been denounced as a ‘cfinnipion ' 01 saviour,'
anfl’that charge l must deal with once and for all, if
only to be able to prosecute my tune! ion of ‘impar-
tial observer/ Alter a couple of \ears or eighteen
months more of intense anti-Paleface propaganda,
such champions will in lad ense. That I regard
as fanlv obvious. A \ariety of either astute or
indignant men (persons actually pale with rage, or
(‘1st persons re licet mg that they might as well get
ho/ncU'inginii oft Ik possession of oui traditional hue,
since up to the picsent it lias not exactly been an
ass< t) are at fins moment, upon that we can depend,
preparing to assume that loJe.

To all these boliwirs I wash a prosperous outcome
to their spirited endeavours At hrst their lot w r ill
be a hard one. They w ill haw* to idealize us a little,
J expect — our jwlc faces haw been so systematically
blackened. And it will of course be difficult to prove
that the Paleface is heller than his Black or Yellow
brother, not only because it is not true, but also
because it is so unpopular a notion.

My position is that I am ready and most anxious
to assist all those who suiter from paleness of com-
plexion and all those under a cloud because their
grandfathers exterminated the Redskins, or bought

8

PALEFACE

and sold cargoes of Blacks. Mv sense of what is just
suffcis when I obsrrv sonic poor honest little palc-
lac(d threo-pound-a-wet k clerk oi mechanic being
bullied b\‘ the hferarv Borzoi big-guns of Mr. Knopf,
and lold to go and kiss the toe of t he nearest Negress,
and ask her humbly (as befits the pallid and unpig-
mented) to be his hnd( i also am eomulsed with
a little laughter at 1 he sol< mint \ wit li which so often
these discussions me ]>m mu d the mcasuicriK nts of'
cranial index, o( lip brain and <\r, m which \hc
Boi/oi 4 in\< sligalor" will indulge, t lie high scientific
plane in shoil upon which so much of I Ins matter
is gushed forth. But tin re are strict limits to mv
ability to help, and these I must now deline.

Meantime I again publish and foretell that the
tune will come (and that lmmediateh) w r hcn, upon
the dail\ ‘starn d and red-billed ' appearance before
the footlights oi some indignant righteous figure (his
facecorkt d to look black) despatched by Mr. Knopf
or Mi. Mencken oi Mi. Plomcr to abuse and ridicule
the aiuhenee (squatting beneath lun., pale both w T it h
natural pigment and with equally understandable
alarm), and to tell them what a lousy lot they
are, an extremely pah figure will either arise from
among the speetalois and dramatically approach the
stage, or else will <»ppiar out of a trap, -*p defend
from the ceiling, or merely stalk fiomthr wings, and
w ? c shall h.ear w'hat we shall hear.

§ ! 2 If the Redshn* *r in our Position.

This fiist csmu, entitled A ‘ moral situation is
de\oted to showing the part played by the puritan

IF THE REDSKIN WERE IN OUR POSITION

•

morality m the present situation. T do not of course
mean that without that hui*h, double-fan d and
doublo-edgod. deeply sentimental rode the world-
scene would not ha\< changed d»astieall\? What I
do mean is that tin* transformation of on; society,
consequent upon the technical limmphs of sea nee,
would have been combated perhaps m a moie
rational at mosplu te -not, as at picsinl, thick with
a mcdimal gloom ol bloodshot iightcoiiMiess.

Historically, tlu lniseha f that lesidesm unbridled
moral righteousness can be* described as follows.--
Having wiped out 01 subjugated all peoples who
had not had tlu* advantages of a elmstian training
in gentleness, humilitv, and othei-worldhness, the
pmitan Pali faces ot \nu rini and Kuiojh* iiatuialJv
win very eimtnte ami tiled to make lip for it to
those who were lift. Quantities of edilSmg hooks
(which were translated into all language's) w*ie pro-
duced, pointing out what a bc«»sl the* Paleface was.
Then were just a ft w Pale laces who tried te> blull it
out and announc* d soundly that they were ‘blond
beasts' —but such sc i tancs abuse d both their brother
Palefaee*s and tlieir imported Pale (ialilcuu’ (iod
into the* bargain sotli.d made ne> dilfercnce.

There is no especially sc'ntimental or <*\t*n mis-
guided uuncim lit of ('mancipation today, anywhere*
m the world, that the' typical protest ant moralist can
oppose, on an} lexical ground Foi /eg/e ullu he is
committed to e\cry sentimental moral value what-
ever. 1 do not #of course mean that w'e* should
behave like* Redskins, but it is not quite pointless to
note that wen the Redskins where todav the Whites
are, technically paramount in a mixed population,

5

PALEFACE

no ‘Colour Question 5 could ‘possibly have arisen.
The supreme beauty significance and limitless superi-
ority of the copper shin, that of Choctaw or Blnck-
foot, over skins of all other colours, would be a
settled axiom and doctrine no hipt of any other
point of \ic\\ would ever pass the se\ere red lips of
tin Red legislators and then fellow ltedskins. Also,
the Redskin being notoriously taciturn, there would
not be much even of that : then 1 would be ntJ’neod of '

i f

palaver, of course, whatever. -In short, it is con-
science that makes cowards, or saints, or just senti-
mental pinky-pinky little* Palefaces of us, that is the
truth of the mat ter: and yet we are as harsh as evei
with each other, m business and in private life, and
there is home chance that we may wipe each other
completely out — where, with the disappearance of
the White skin, the Colour question would auto-
matically cease.

A question is lying m wait for nu : ‘Are you not
then upon the sick 1 of conscience —you despise the
Christian ethic ? 1 Hut it is to that I wished to lead,
and I answer promptly- ‘Oh no — you have quite
mistaken my meaning You expect too much of
me, or too little, according to the point of view.
Th< “principle of an absolute* value m the human
person as such," of wlumvn i itt or order. I am
eager to advance But you ? I only question if you
fully understood the nature of your chnstian sacri-
fice. If )ou do not understand it, then it is useless
and you ar<* nurclj a fool. When a person as it
were selfishly immolates himself, in response to some
very tawrlrv emotional appeal, we call it a senti-
mentality. Aie jou sure that your asceticism (or

6

THE ETHICS OF THE COLOUR QUESTION

humanitarianism, radicalism, or liberalism^ is not of
that kind?’ m

If you want to know the answer to these questions
of mine, see whether my further analysis outrages or
annoys you or not. Then vou will know r .

§ 3. The Ethics at flic Basis oQlhe Colour Question .

. Tiik European political leaders have been almost
fantastically sensitive to ethical considerations m
their policies from time to time — they have seldom
acted too brutally without afterwards acting too
gt ntlv, to restore t lie Christian balance. This hyper-
sensitive condition induced by their proteslant
Christian training, ol kirk and sunday-school, has
had its good and bad side, m the sequel: but as
statesmanship, upon the old jingo basis, it w r as in-
d< fensible.

So having isolated in the present situation m
which our society finds itself the principal motive
power, that which gi\es it the colour that it has
though not the form, we can proceed to an examina-
tion of those ethical principle* at their source. For
this purpose I will take the very useful Prolegomena
to Ethics of T. H. Green. (Green was a celebrated
Oxford moral philosopher, issuing from the revolu-
tionary philosophy of Hegel, rather earlier than
Bradley and Bosanquet ) I had better say at once
that it is a book that appears to me almost typically
unintelligent. It is indeed representative of that
blight that morals have insinuated under the skin of
most Europeans. The sheer sentimentalism of this
revolutionary piotestant moralist is nevertheless a

7

PALEFACE

ver> i ntt Testing medium through which to look at
the objects of our present concern. One reason for
this is that it Mas the characteristic atmosphere 1 of
anglo-sa^on life, during many years, during which
the events of today \v ere being prepared, throughout
the world. •

§ 4. The Can sc of 'Gob and the People:

In speaking of the conscientious perplexities of*
the religious mind, when it linds tin teaching of its
dogma in conflict with the interest of the; Stale,
Gro«‘»i "writes .

‘the same ditlicult\ . . . in earlier days must have 1
occurred to Quakers and Anabaptists, wheie the
law derived trom Scnpl mv seemed eont rudietory to
that of the state, and to those earl} Christian* for
whom the law which they chsobe\cd in icfusmg to
sacrilicc retained any authority. In still earlier
tunes it may have aiiseii m the form ol that con-
flict bit ween the laws of the fanuh and the law of
the State, presented in the AnUgont . Noi is the
ease really dilfcreni when the liiodcm citizen, in
his capacity as an oilicial or as a soldier, is called
upon to help in putting down some revolution-
ary movement which yet presents itself to Ins
inmost cornu tmn ii> tilt. ( aud< ui ‘ God and the
People ! M ’

Green goes on to consider what must be the atti-
tude of the philosopher m this painful situation — in
which God, or conscience, is upon one side, appar-
ently, and the State, or the organized authority at
any given moment, upon the othei. lie concludes

8

THE CAUSE OF GOD AND THE PEOPLE ’

that the philosopher,. hv the effect of his* teaching
beforehand upon the minds oft lie effective minority,
may have ^>me useful influence in the moment of
crisis.

fc In preparation for the times when conscience
is thus liable to be divided against itself, much
practical set vice inav bo rt ndcicd by a philosophy
which, without depreciating the authority of con-
science as such, can explain t hi origin of its con-
flicting deliverances, and, without pronouncing
unconditional]^ for eithei, can direct the soul to
the true md. . . .*

The counsel of such a philosopher as he has been
considering might ‘have its effect upon the few who
lead the many, m pripanng the mind through years
of meditation for the da\s when prompt practical
dt cision is requited’* that is the point.

In anv ‘conflict between pm ate opinion and au-
thority,’ Gm n’s counsel would always be on the side
of the individual and his independent conscience.
And indeed to the lull-blooded claims of such a * con-
science ’ to make a waste-land of our life, Green
would set positively no bounds at all. TCver\ year
‘conscience’ must weigh more heavily upon us, as
Christian men, he uihrms Evciy fresh star that
swum into our ken is a fiesh burden -—never a new
delight, alwa\s an added nightmaie. Reflection
upon the load sir have to carry m comparison
with the lighthearted Hellene of Antiquity, pro-
vides Green with a long series of dismal reflections,
inviting us to an ideal of mechanical and colourless
asceticism.

PALEFACE

»

§ 5. Passing "the poittf, beyond which there seems no
longer to be either good or exnU

To pas*, the barrier described above by Aristotle
into a non-etlneal region is not part of the asceticism
of tins particular kind of morale!, lor lus c willing-
ness to endure even unto complete self-renunciation,
even to the point of forsaking ail possibility of
pleasure,’ is envisaged by Green in the most cheer-*
less manner, m a kind of paroxysm of middleeiass
nineteenth-century christian-duty, that is calculated
to make the flesh creep far more thoroughfy than
could any self-imposed rigours of the gvmnosophist.

‘To an ancient Greek a society composed of a
small group of freemen, having recognized claims
upon each other and using a much larger body of
men with no such recognized claims as instru-
ments in their service, seemed the only possible
society. In such an order of things those calls
could not be heard which evoke the sacrifices
constantly witnessed m the nobler lives of Christ-
endom, sacrifices which would be quite other than
they are, if they did not involve the renunciation
of those “pleasures of the soul” and “unimxcd
pleasures,” as they were reckoned in the Platonic
psychology, which it did i'*>t <w 4 cm to the philo-
sophers that there could b< any occasion m the
exercise of the highest virtue to forgo The calls
for siu h sacrifices arise from t hat enfranchisement
of all men which, though m itself but negative m
its nature, carries with it for the responsive con-
science a claim on the part of all men to such
positive help from all men as is needed to make

10

‘NO LONGER EITHER GOOD OR •EVIL’

t heir freedom real. Where the Greek saw a supply
of possibly serviceable labour, . . . t he Christian
eitizcn see* a multitude of persons, who m their
actual present condition may have no ath ant age
over the slaves of an ancient state, bul who in
undeveloped possibility, and in the claims which
•arise out of that possibility, are all that he him-
self is. Seeing this, lie finds a necessity laid upon
linn. # It is no time to enjov the pleasuies of eye
aricl ear, of search for know ledgi , of ft lendlj inter-
course, of applauded speech or writing, while the
mass of men . whom we (helaie to he meant
with us for eternal destinies, are left without t he*
chance . . . of making themselves m act what
m possibility we believe them to be. Interest m
the problem of social deliverance . . . forbids a
surrender to enjoyments which are not incidental
to that work of d< hvciance, whatever the value
winch they, or the activities to which they belong,
might otherwise have.’

As to this progressive renunciation of ever} ves-
tige of pleasure, on behalf of this 'principle ot an
abstract value ui the human person as such,* Green
says that with ‘every advance tow aids its univi rsal
application comes a complication ot the ncccssit},
under which the conscientious man feels himself
placed, of sacrificing personal pleasure in satisfaction
of the claims of human brotherhood. On the one
side the freedom of everyone to shift for himself . . .
on the other, the responsibility of everyone for
everyone, acknowledged by the awakened con-
science: tlu'ie together jorm a moral situation in which

11

PALEFACE

the good citizen has no leisuredo think oj developing in
dm piqpotUon his m on /acuities of enjoymt at. (1
have italicized the last sentence.) •

The ‘$*bod citizen's’ lot, ha\ ing to forgo more and
more enjoyment, even ‘the pleasures of the soul’
(which it did not so much as occur to a (hetk to
sacrifice), is indeed a melancholy one, it seems, ,as
the num hot oi people in tin world increases and
as the new spa pcis or cinemas inform him, or put
visibly before* him, moic and more cieatureV lor
whom he is ‘ responsible/ Tins is study the veiy
madness of morality, lor theie is no compensating
beauty such as you get in the gi eat cat liolie mj sties;
there is nothing but this cold and ever growing,
dutiful, quantitative usponsibihly

§0. ‘ Every man both by laic and common sentiment
is lecognized as having a “si turn'"

According to Green's expanding principle of ‘the
common good' there is no limit to such expansion,
or to the corresponding depression and ascetic con-
tinence of the conscientious Christian. As k nif*n’
we call a hall, liowevti, lx foie animals and things 1
This at least, for Green, contim s the question to the
surface of this globe and h# t.vo Lgged ummaK: no
inhabitant of another woild. or a mere horse or cat
m tins om% can make us unhappy. Hut to every
‘man" we should not only postpone our own interest,
but m Ins behalf, though we navy ne\ er have seen
him but only heard of him, we should abstain from
any pleasure, even oj the mind . (The abstaining
from the ‘pleasures of the mind’ may be a compli-

12

EVERY MAN HAS A “ SITTTM '

«

ment to our ncighbonr-m Jus capacity of man/ in
contradistinction to ‘annual/)*

• In quoting«the definition of Justice from the hi-
biitutch (‘Jushcin cst constansct perpetua Voluntas
suimi cuiqnc tnbuendi’) he wutes ‘e\cry man both
by law and common sentiment is recognized as
iuu/inga ‘‘suum ” — that is the typical abstract ex-
pression of the notion that then* is something due
from evefy man to e\cry man/ (The nu n principle,
of course, that e\er\one, of v\hatc\ei caste, creed or
iacc, ha^» a suuni/ is not siitlicicnt to base our moral
conduct upon, as we must first know what ‘suiim'

IS.)

But m Gre< i/s mow ‘there is no necessary limit
of numbers or space be\ond which the spiritual
principle of social relations becomes incfJcctivc/
Ills expansm ness is i calls infinite, that is to sa\.

‘In the whole mow ot life* which [philanthropic
work] implies, m the objects which inspire it, . .

a view of life [is implied] in which the maintenance
of any form of political society scarcely holds a
place: m which In < s that would be contemptible
and valueless, if estimated "ith reference to the
purposes of the State, are nnested with a value
of their own in virtue of capabilities of some
society not seen as yet/

This readiness of the fanatieal moralist to ignore
the claims ot ‘any form of political society’ and to
give up his life frwMhc publicans and sinners, who
are peculiarly adapted to ‘some society not seen as
yet/ gives him an unquestionable advantage over
the Greek, contemporary with Plato: he proves

13

PALEFACE

that the "progress of the species l is not a phantasy.

-Ycl gf course, to*ihc supcriicial eye, the G^eek
might be supposed to have t lie best of it. This is
an absolute mistake.

‘Now, when we compare the life of service to
mankind, involving so much sacrifice of pure
pleasuie, winch is lived by men whom m our con-
sciences we think iVst, and which they reproach
themselves for not making one of more complete
self-denial, with the life of free activity m bodily
and intellectual exercises, in friendly conyerse, in
c*vd debate, m the enjoyment of beautiful sights
and sounds, which v\c commonly ascribe to the
Greeks . . . vve might be apt, in the tirst view, to
think that, even though measured not merely bv
the quantity of pleasure incidental to it but by
1 lie fulness of the realization of human capabili-
ties implied m it, the latter kind of life was the
higher of the two. Man for man, the Greek . .
might seem to bo intrinsically a nobler being —
one ol more fully developed powers — than the
self-mortifying Christian, upon whom the sense
of duty to a suffering world weighs too heavily to
allow of Ins gning Irce-ploy to enjoyable activi-
ties. . /

‘On the tirst v r icw r * you would fall perhaps into
that mistake, and as far as tins philosopher's ac-
count of the situation is concerned no one could find
it m h;> he irt, or conscience, to bkuue you, 1 beheve.
1 fmd it impossible to rescue myself from that initial
error.

14

• OUR WORLD ALMOST PURELY KTJIK'AL

«

• •

§7. Our Wo? Id has become a?? mlmost /h/iy/;/ .Ethical
Place . •

The ‘moral situation’ which m those quotations
from Green I h^\c, 1 hope, biought clearly before
jou, is the moral situation that underlies all tin
questions that arc agitating us today, — The funda-
mentals of this situation aro # cloaih explained to
\ou by these quotations lroin Gun u. It is ‘a moral
situation/ that is the essential point: our world
has become an almost puielj ethical place. But
since the time of Green much progress has been
made — lie would scarcely recognize it. (If he came
to life again I .shudder to think of the sheer avoirdu-
pois of miserable duty that would be added to his
already staggering load.) There is the same ‘moral
situation/ but men’s capacity to harm and interim
wdh <ach other has immensely increased, and lho\
ha\c not been slow to take ad\antage of this. So
side by side we have an evci-inon a smg ethical pres-
sure — more and more strenuous dreams of moral
persuasiveness — and a darker and darker cloud ot
poison-gas always gathering upon the horizon, and
larger and larger birds oJ prey — m the form of aero-
planes pregnant with colossal bombs — hovering o\ er
us: also war-films and wai -books multiply at a
dumbfounding rate. — So it is an intensely ‘moral
situation’: soon any ‘ascetic’ worth his salt will
sink immediately beneath the burden, as he steps
out of his cradle and looks round — already several
are mere spectres m our midst, from whose lips
issue a few sepulchral words at rare intervals.

Discussing a remark of Matthew Arnold’s regard-

15

PALEFACE

mg righteousness, Samuel B filler made some com-
ments worth considering in this connection. Among
other things lie wrote as follows: •

‘I would join issue with Mr. Matthew Arnold
on vel another point . I understand him lo imply
I hat righteousness should be a man’s highest aim
in life. I do not ljko setting up righteousness
nor yei anything e^se, as the highest aim m life:
a man should have any number of little antis about*
which lie should be conscious and for wine)) he
should have names, but he should have neither
name for, nor consciousness concerning, the mam
aim of his life. Whatever we do we must try and
do rightly — this is obvious — but righteousness
implies something much more than this: it con-
veys to our minds not only the desire to get what-
ever we have taken in hand as nearh right as
possible, hut also the general reference of our lives
to the supposed will of an unseen but supreme
pow r er. Granted that there is such a power, and
granted that wc should obey its w r ill, we aie the
more likely to do this the less w r e concern our-
selves about the matter and the more w r e confine
our attention to the things immediately round
about us. 5

That has a most agreeable sound after Green : the
h desire to dogmatise about matters w r hereon the
Greek and .Roman held certainty to be al once un-
important and unattainable’ (again Butler’s words)
grows upon a person or upon a community: and
though I should not he able to agree w r ith all of
Butler’s text, the passion for tolerance, at least,

16

ESPRIT DE PEAV

which was such a feature of that light-hearted and
penetrating philosopher, is surely today a thing of
which we cannot have enough, as we find ourselves
hemmed m more and moic by right eousifess and
intolerance.

§ 8 Esprit tic Peon.

• PLAiNifr if no obligation of any soit wen* recog-
nized,* w f e should not h(* discussing these things at
all and Ijfie man with the money and the gun w T ould
do as lie liked. It is true that sik h an event as the
Civil YY r ar has been accounted for on the ground of
tin existence of certain economic factors; and from
what we know of suehcvenls, unadulterated altruism
is unlikely lo ha\» been the sole incentive. But
howe\ or impure th< motives that can be smelt out —
and that is seldom diHicul' ! ho biutal physical
subject »on of one race to anot hot could not co-cxist
with such conditions as at present obtain lliiough-
oul the world. And, once I fiat lirsl radical eman-
cipation effected, Uk race-prejudice or traditional
superstition of some absolute or in\stical ‘superi-
ority’ could not be maintained, either. Step b\
step the sensation that he was dealing with a being
of a lower order was bound to be wormed 01 beaten
out of i lie a vi rage YVlute. for the simple reason that
the average White has the same master as the
average Black: and although that master's skin is
more or less YVhitc,Jie is not a man of sentiment and
lie s' cn moque pas mat, as far as the question of skins
is concerned: what int (‘rests him is what he has to
pay the hands he employs, naturally, and not their

B 17

PALEFACE

colour. And this applies both m Africa and
America, or where. er else you get that situation —
of a master (who happens usually tc be White, but
that is neither here nor there) and a mixed popula-
tion of Black and White wage-slaves, of all shades
of race and creed.

A belief m racial superiority (such as was enter-
tained bv the White Brahmin m India for the negri-
tie population of tlie Dekkan, or such as is still fdt
by the average uninstructed White American for a
Negro) is a political factor of great effeetiyeness, of
course, but only on condition that the political
power be jealously invested in the hands of a minor-
ity of a certain skin, and with a flourishing esprit de
corps or t. sprit dr pcau , as it might be* called, and
provided real inalienable privileges go with the pig-
ment. That is only possible in the closed political
systems represented by Greece, India, China, or, as
regards America, m the earlier history of the United
States.

Where privilege disappears and a pigmentation or
a laeial descent takes with it no artificial advan-
tages, these formal beliefs wither at once. For take
another racial superstition, the most intense and
inveterate that the world has ever known — namely
that of the infeuonty of the Jew. A ‘superiority
complex 5 has, until recently, been enjoyed by every-
body at the expense of that kind of religious outcast,
almost ‘untouchable,' of the West. With their im-
mense intellectual resources, thejustre of tin ir thco-
logie past, the Jews themselves were lifted above
this superstition, no doubt. Blit today that par-
ticular superstition has little chance of survi valm the

18

ESPRIT DE PEAU

bosom of some very average European, left to him-
self, and confronted in the mechanical jungle of a
modern city by some Jewish competitor, who prob-
ably possesses twice as much intelligence as*hc does,
and whose industry or even mania for work puts
what is quite likely his very moderate zeal in the
shade. And when you add to tins the fact of the
admirable organization of the Jewish consciousness,
and that Che poor little non-jcwish protagonist will
have nothing behind him hut our untidy, selfish,
chaotic political systems, and about as much esprit
de corps or cspiit dc peau to support him as would
bo found in a family of guinea-pigs, it is difficult to
see how that particular sense of superiority could
have survived m present conditions And indeed
it has not. That 4 superiority * superstition is, of
course, the extieme ease: but there is no other top-
dog-feelmg either, based on tribal or national self-
feeling, or prestige of skin, which can survive in the
heart of a wage-slave or cconomu under-dog, m
touch with men technically of ‘inferior 5 races, in th'*
same situation as himself, competing with him, when
no favour of an artificial sort, but indeed rather the
contrary, is extended to him.

§9. I low i/ou must beware of too much 'esprit de
peau'

Unable to ignore m my analysis of what under-
lies the literary a nd* pictorial expression of the pre-
sent time, the political factors so busily at work, I
find myself with some surprise writing about human
skins. And under more normal conditions I should

19

PALEFACE

probably be ranged upon the other side of the argu-
ment. I am reall) r/ driven into the position of the
Devil's Advocate 1<> some extent (the devil or villam-
of-thc-piccc being now of course the o\erbearmg,
stupid, wicked Paleface as seen by the conventional
revolutionary tract) by the excesses of the anti
Whites — not, I am afraid, from what I have called
cspiit <l( pcau . Mat flung violently into that dia-
bolical position, I did I must sa\ at first find myself
developing what was a sort of cspiit de pcaUs of a
quite respectable dimension. I detected myself
looking with a new complacency upon the White
skin: there was something about a Paleface , w r as
there not? that I had overlooked in mv zeal for a
non-national consciousness: I could scarcely under-
stand how it had escaped my attention that all these
familiar light ish masks held something lor my eve,
nevertheless (blunted by familiarity), that the var-
nished countenance of a quadioon ora ‘high yallcr,’
or the sickly liverish ambers of an Ilavvaian belle,
did not contain.

As a consequent e of the sc personal experiences of
mine (to which I have had to call a halt, but winch
I shall not forged) I nally believe that we could, if
we wanted to, get up quite a fellow-feeling for our
fellow Paleface s What I fear is that as things
stand at present it would immediately result in our
looking askance at our lllack and Yellow brothers:
for everybody has been so long indoctrinated with
intolerant attitudes of mind, tfial dogmatical me-
chanical reversals have become the only way that
the average Pah fact is now able to express himself
at .ill. So when it suddenly became plain to the

20

•BEWARE OF TOO MUCH ESPRIT DE 'PEA U

enlightened Paleface what admirable people the
White Europeans, his brothers a*ul sisters, were (how
far more significant to an unprejudiced and romanti-
cally-unrottcd outlook the* Paleface girl vvtts than
the average coloured huh), lie would turn with ail
unsocial or even anti-social animosity upon tin*
simple-hearted African, who is m no way respon-
sible for all these 'Dark Princesses* or the Colour
phantasies indulged in b\ the llorzoi big-guns and
some others.

As fan as I am concerned 1 would rather have
things as they are than provoke m any way a re-
action of intolerance*. J3ut then* is no fear of that
for llu* moment: and when the reaction comes, as
it must, I hope that what I shall have had to say
will serve to make ils manifestations less ridiculous,
.iiul to offer some resistance to the colour-blind
fanatic who can onlv see one eolom at a time, as it
were, and not simultaneously embrace a walnut
brown and an ivory white, as we all should be able*
to do with ease and conviction.

If these reactionn i v dangers could lie conjured,
then l believe that some sort ol cs prit de pyau might
be cultivated will advantage: for the intensive
propagation of infer unity-ample av* (m the present
revolutionary u*\ersak — and all Whites are suspect
to some extent on account of their privileged posi-
tion over against t lie Coloured Peoples) is not good
for the morale of our communities and so alfeets all
of us indirect 1\ . Assuredly there are limits beyond
which Green’s counsel of depression and ‘self-morti-
fication* can be consummated in nothing but sell-
death : and self-death or suicide is not a step to

21

PALEFACE

\

i

which we should allow ourselves too tamely to be
led - -if only upon grounds of conscience. We have
a responsibility of an order unguessed at by Green.
For, if afil Palefcues in the world were so truly right-
eous that we as one man succumbed, consequent
upon the impossible burdens laid upon us b\ r our
puritan consciences (and I am perfectly ready to
admit that if we sat down and thought compre-
hensively enough of* all our sms and those* of all our
ancestors we should see no alternative but to suc-
cumb m that manner), why then all the* Blacks,
after ns (who are even more emotional than we are
and if anything better ( \ angclists) would follow suit
as one man, unable to bear the spectacle of this whole-
sale Tragedy of Conscience, of which they had been
t he innocent cause. No no ! t he example we ha\ e set
aliendy to all other peoples of the world lias been
unfortunate enough, m its mechanical sterility, and
its Hgrcssjvo philistinism, without taking that fur-
ther sin upon ourselves. Let us draw back in time.
Let us keep our noses well in the air. It is the
White Man’s Burden !

§ 10. The White in the same Boat as the Black .

In § 7 1 was dealing with what is the most power-
ful argument against the extension of an anti-White
campaign— namely that the great majority of Pale -
jaces are now in the same boat as their Coloured
friends — that obviously they art in the position of
fellow-slaves, and not of a ‘White Conqueror 5 at all.
It is even amazing that this should not be at once
recognized. It is on account of what the communist

22

WHITE IN THE SAME BOAT AS BLACK

would call the * bourgeois * state of nnnd of tlie West
that this simple fact is novel* noticed. But the
whole situation (the ‘moral situation’), as it stands,
appears to mo on the face of it exceedingly false,
even laughable. One would almost think, while
reading a tvpical* propagandist book, of the Plomor
or .Du Bois variety, that their authors had never
considered (apart from giving* their assent or not)
the message of the communist, nor wen familiar
with the picture the latter delights to draw of the
Capitalist System and its inhuman results. Yet
they arc communists, for the most part. But tliev
are bourgeois communists, of our pink Western
variety.

I will assemble for your inspection a few of the
contradictions of this particular ‘moral’ situation.
First, there arc vociferous advocates or ‘champions’
for every description of man in the world toda\
except for the White Man. If any one announced his
intention of becoming that, the Paleface World
would be amazed. It would lie as though a man
had proclaimed himself a ‘Champion of the Kaiser’
— before the Kaiser s fall ! Everybody assunu s
that the White Man (and that I take it does not
mean a handful of magnates but the White Average)
is an oppressive, overbearing, unintelligent, cruel,
conceited top-dog — obviously not in need, there-
fore, of a ‘champion,’ in the way that a poor down-
trodden Mexican Peon, American Negro, Chinaman
or Bantu, is. Thu* may be so: but there are hun-
dreds of thousands of miners and their families in
England toda> who arc out of work and without the
proper requirements for animal life. Against the

23

PALEFACE

t

London parks at night penniless people lie huddled
in their hundreds. Our streets both day and night
swarm with every variety of beggar. « All these are
White People, and they rule the world, suffering to a
man from 1 superiority ’ complexes. It is a paradox :
for they have a strange wav of testifying to their
superiority!

Bv turning to the 'more prosperous levels of the
community' you wifit find equally many evidences
of overweening mastery — only there the t\rahnous
Paleface is mciely more restrained — lie ijoes not
Hmg himself down upon the pavement to sleep on
a winter night to show his ‘mastery,’ lie has other
and subtler ways.

If there is mastery, at all events, let us confess
that it is verv skin-deep: employment is obtained
and held under more exacting conditions than be-
fore, there is everywhere more anxiety and less
freedom. On this last head let me quote from the
Daily Telegraph , a paper that cannot be accused of
‘bolshevist’ propensities, surely.

MOST GOVERNED NATION
‘THIRTY YEARS' CHANGE

* Oi i’a vv a , uni ay

‘Sir William Clark, British High Commissioner,
addressing the Institute of Professional Men and
Civil Servants of Canada, went on to say:

“ l lt is lairly ,*aie to say that thirty years ago
Great Britain was less governed than almost any
country m Europe, but now its inhabitants are
more thoroughly inspected, controlled, and ad-

24

MOST GOVERNED NATION

ministered from the cradle to the grave than those,
perhaps, of any other natidh.” ’

It is nothing, of course, to be ‘inspected and con-
trolled. ’ 13ut masters are not overlooked, numbered
like sheep, inspected and hectored for minor dis-
obedience.

We are in Europe barelv ten years away from an
unexampled War (both m losses, duration and m
aimlessness) of the* most consummate barbarity;
and wi*arc told on all hands m our ‘capitalist * Press
that we are well on the way to another one, which
will be far worse. In the last war (Mr. Citizen is
informed) the noble airmen of the various countries
were only able to bomb to bits a mere handful of
citizens (owing to the regrettable backwardness of
the man of science — after all an air-force officer or
a munition magnate cannot bo expected to know
anything about chemicals himself — he cannot make*
the bombs, nor improve the planes to carry them!)
— but in the next jolly old flare-up (the next ‘Great
Adventure * m other words) millions of people, it is
confidently expected, will be wiped out in a single
night of fairly successful bombing.

Nov/ as very few people today are thoroughly
taken in by jmgo cries and sudden accounts of the
detestable characters possessed by all Frenchmen,
or Germans, or Russians or whatever it may be
(followed by a peremptory order to massacre all
these villains and devils), it is not easy for them to
feel very perfectly top-doggy or to enjoy as fully as
they might wish the sensation that they are ‘the roof
and crown of things/ The gilded palaces in which

25

PALEFACE

the Million drinks its tea or sees Ramon Novarro or
Dolores Costello, give\hem a little that feeling, but
not altoget her. And not being quite irrational, they
do see berfbath this luxurious gilding, for which they
pay their sixpenees. in glimpses (between the cracks
of some foolish film, between the lines of somedrivel-
ling article), a ‘ moral situat ion ’ that has little enough
comfort to satisfy the philosopher from whom I
have quoted. May not, you ask yourself* as you
watch him, this Master of the World find himself in
the end, abject and leaderlcss, a herd whose pale
skin is a standing reproach — an emblem of tyranny
instead of an emblem of privilege — driven madly
hither and thither in gigantic wars that have at
length become completely meaningless? If this
apocalyptic picture sounds to your ears sensational
or far-fetched, I can only say that you forget very
quickly what was called at the time ‘Armageddon.’

With these circumstances (of enormous disaster
so close behind us and of a most uncertain future —
to judge by Naval-Pacts and the rest of what we are
told in our papers) featured for once properly, as
they deserve, well in the forefront of our mind, is it
possible to listen very patiently to tales of ‘our’
oppression of the Black, the Yellow or the Red?
They are doubtless * oppressed, all of them, just as
we are — if you must talk about oppression: but
that we is a thing that today sticks deeper and
deeper m our throats. ‘Our Indian Possessions* is
not a phrase that even the stupidest Englishman
would employ today: and whoever Indians have
to deal with — and no doubt they have to deal with
somebody — it is not with vs.

26

MOST GOVERNED NATION

I have been accused* for my Palejace , of a desire
to keep under my heel the population of Bcjigal, by
my friend Paul and my friend Sage (as I have been
accused for my remarks on Mother India eff a desire
to rescue India from Paleface dominion and its
abuses). I have answered those gentlemen else-
where, however. In addressing my brother Pale-
faces, at the start, and in using, possibly, an us or
a we (as # one Paleface to anotlier), it may really have
been* assumed, of course, that I was implying that
‘our’ interests, if there are such things, possess a
beautiful coherence and simplicity that m fact is far
from the case. Were there readers who assumed
that I intended to say that the ‘Palefaces ’ should be
given for ever and for ever softer beds, nicer and
warmer clothes, better roofs over their heads, and
more pocket-money than their Black, Yellow, and
Red brothers ? 1 hope at all events that now I shall

have succeeded in disabusing any one of such a
belief. But in a further section I will be engaged
in eradicating even more thoroughly such a mis-
conception from the casual mind.

§ 11. The Paleface , that 1 negation oj coloutS as seen
by Du Bois.

To the European who has not followed at all the
sociological controversy peculiar to the Publics of
America, some of the point of what I have written
may quite well be# lost, for the ‘problem’ that cer-
tainly exists as between the inhabitants of Europe
(that ‘small cape’ tacked on to Asia) and the great
continents inhabited by the ‘coloured’ peoples, or

27

PALEFACE

shared with the Whites, is not a matter of everyday
interest.. The europPan Press resounds with the
disputes of the alsatian Separatists, the roumaman
or tyroleftn minorities, the frontier squabbles of
Fascist Italy with France or Svntzerland, and of
course with dog-racing and the explosion of gas-
mains, but it is strictly the europea n scene of the
moment that is reflected, and all other parts of the
world arc shut out, they have no news-valu&. This
is far more so today than when what happened in
America or Asia mattered immeasurably less* to the
average European.

It may under these circumstances be as well to
select a book or two, and by means of a fc w extracts
show that this ‘problem’ is at least an extremely
exciting one to many people, and that books dealing
with it are able to command a wide public. The
books of Mr. Plonier the 1 South African novelist are
no doubt known to all South Africans, and m Eng-
land they have received some attention, so 1 will
not take them, but rather make my selection from
amencan lists.

‘The Negro in Borzoi Books’ (as the Knopf ad-
vertisement runs) is very prominent, and it is Mr.
Knopf, the Now York publisher, who in his sponsor-
ing of the Awn icon Mercury and his constant featur-
ing of Negro subjects has done more than any one
else to bring this sort of agitation to a head. In
The Autobiography of an eu'-enlouud Man , in The
Fire in the Flint, Flight, Wooing? •/ Jezebel , PctUjjer,
The Weanj Blues, Fine Clothes Jar the Jew , Negro
Drawings, Fo'mchaday , Lily, Lady Luck , The Wild-
cat , The American Negro, Quicksand, and The Sailor’s

28

THE PALEFACE, THAT ‘NEGATION OF COLOUR’

•

Return , you have throughout the theme of Black
versus White as a Icit mohv— or at all event* that of
the sad lot <5f the Negro in the White World.

It has never been my privilege to meet Mr. Knopf,
and I can hazard no opinion as to what actuates him
m this matter: but T have no reason to suppose that
Jt has been anything but a compassionate sense of
the Negro's sufferings, coupled with an intelligent
dislike of that certain shallow' eoeksureness shown
bv many Palefaces, both of which fet lings, if they
are hit, I share willi him. He has certainly been
instrumental, however that max be, in improving
the Negro’s position a great deal in the North, and
m reducing on all sides the cocksureness I have just
mentioned. Hut both the important Review that
lias had his support, and the books he has published,
have adopt'd often an exceedingly partisan and
bellicose attitude. And it is that which mud in the
end, if persisted in, call out the White Hopes, to
whom I referred at the commencement of this
book.

There is however a \ ohmic entitled Dark Pnnecss,
by W. E. B. Du Bois, published b\ llarcouit Brace,
which suggests itself to me as the best tiling of the
sort to quote lrom of any, m order to provide* the
uninitiated White reader with some idea of the
character and intensity of this movement. Dark
Princess is a novel: it describes the adventures of
a negro doctor, named Matthew Towns. It is a
novel of tlie best-seller type, from that point of view
in the same category as say Van Vechtcn. It is
written I belie ve by a Negro, w r hich is of course
to start with better for a book than being written

29

PALEFACE

by Van Vechten (the author of Nigger Heaven — so
well known that there could be no object in quoting
from it). A rather fiery political purpose informs
the DarJf Prince&s, and it combines the charactci-
lstics of one of the cheaper films, with a violent
political tract, but m tins case, T believe, quite a
sincere political tract.

Matthew Towns is a negro medical student m
New York. After two years at a medical School he
wishes to register for obstetrics. The ‘Dean’reVuses
to allow him to do this. In the course of an alterca-
tion the Dean remarks, ‘Well, wlial did you expect ?
Juniors must have obstetrical work. Do you think
white women patients are going to have a nigger
doctor delivering their babies ? ’ Towns throws his
certificate and other documents in the face of the
Dean: after that he leaves America, naturally m a
very savage state of mind.

In a Berlin Cafe, where he is sitting very home-
sick for the Dark World from which he has become
exiled, his eyes suddenly fall upon a beautiful and
romantic figure — a dark figure — in short, upon one
of his own land. This event is described as follows.

‘First and above all came that sense of color:
into this world of pale Yellowish and pinkish
parchment, that absence or negation of color,
came suddenly a glow of golden brown skin.’

(This World of pale vcllowish and pinkish parch-
ment* is our World, the White \W>rld ; m language
of tlus sort in fact our poor World is always de-
scribed — m a most disrespectful and wounding
manner.)

30

THE PALEFACE, THAT NEGATION OF COLOUR *

The eyes of the dark, the ‘colorful’ apparition are
‘pools of night,’ they have * beautiful depths ’ (you
could imagine yourself in the midst of a story by
D. H. Lawrence, almost). Matthew pulls himself
together. ‘Here — here in Berlin, and a few tables
away, actually sat a radiantly beautiful woman.
bnd she was colored.'

But out of that circumambient world of ‘pale
yellowish and pinkish parchftient’ conies a figure,
one tvith a pinkish parchment face — in short, VVhite
— an American White. This pasty ‘negation of
color’ attempts to thrust himself upon the beautiful
dark apparition. Towns follows them outside, and
as the dark lady is about to enter a taxi, he hits the
pinkish parchment mask ‘right betw'ecn the smile
and the ear.’ Exit the White World. Matthew'
Towns springs into the taxi. After a little con-
i ersation he finds he is in the presence of an Indian
Princess.

H.R.1I. The Princess Kautilya of Bwodpur,
India,’ it transpires, is one of the leaders of an organ-
ization for arming all the Coloured Peoples, in Asia,
America, and Africa, against the Whites. He is
invited to a dinner, at which Coloured leaders from
all parts of the world arc present. Here is the de-
scription of the guests.

‘ Ten of them sat at the t able. On the Princess’
left was a Japanese, faultless in dress and manner,
evidently a man of importance, as the deference
showm him and Uic orders on his breast indicated.
He was quite yellow, short and stocky, with a face
which was a delicately handled but perfect mask.
There w r ere two Indians, one a man grave,

31

PALEFACE

haughty, and old, dressed richly in turban and
embroidered tunic?, the other, in conventional
dress and turban, a young man, handsome and
alert, Vhose eyes were ever on the Princess.
There were two Chinese, a voung man and a young
w'oman, he in a plain but becoming Chinese cos-
tume of heavy blue silk, she in a pretty dress, hglf
Chinese, half European in e ffect. An Egyptian
and his wife came next, he suave, talkative, and
polite — just a shade 1 too talkative and a btt too
polite, Matthew thought; his wife a big* hand-
some, silent woman, elegantly jeweled and
gowned, with much bare flesh. Beyond them
was a cold and rather stiff Arab who spoke seldom,
and then abrupt 1\

These were the guests of the Princess Kantilya —
who turns to Towns and remarks, ‘“You will note.
Mi. Towns, that we represent here much of the
Darker World. Indee d, when all our circle is pre-
sent, wo lepresent all of it, save your world of Black
Folk/’ 4 All the darker world except the darkest,”
said the Eg\ptian/

As to the 1 deportment of tins Dark, conspiratorial
company, it left nothing to be desired, from the
standpoint of the most exacting Paleface traditions.
Indeed, after they ‘had eaten some delicious tidbits
of meat and vegetables’ and been ‘served with a
delicate sou p’ (the service and ciusinc are thoroughly
european, only more magnificent, of course, than
anything known to the Gourmets Club in Paris —
there are ‘des 1 runs normandes ’ at t he right moment
in the ‘collation,’ only deeper holes than any Palc-

32

* HE PALEFACE, THAT ‘NEGATION OF COLOUR ’

*

face ever dug, and a<* to the caviare — ! !) — hut after
the first ‘tidbits of moat 5 Towns becomes more and
more thunderstruck al ‘the case and fluency with
which most of this company used languages, so
easily, without groping or hesitation, and 'with light
sure shading, 5 and the manner m which ‘they talked
arf*in French, literature in Italian, politics in Ger-
man, and everything m clear English.’

For my # own part 1 must confess that, in reading
Dark Princess, I was somewhat abashed, myself, to
remark 4 hat these Dark plotters were as familiar
with ' Vorticism' — my invention — as w r ith chop-
sticks. But I was flattcied, too, of course: whereas
Towns grows less and less elated as the meal goes on.

‘ u Pan -Africa,” says the Princess, “belongs
logically with Pan-Asia; and for that reason Mr.
Towns is welcomed tonight bv you, I am sure, and
by me especially. lie did me a seivicc iv- 1 was
returning from the New Palace.’

‘They all looked interested, but the Egyptian
broke out :

‘ “Ah, Your Highness, the New Palace, and
what is the fad today? What has followed ex-
pressionism, cv bism, futurism, vortieism ? I con-
fess myself at sea. Picasso alarms me. Matisse
sets me aflame. But I do not understand them.
I prefer the classics.”

‘"‘The Congo,” said the Princess, “is flooding
the Acropolis. There is a beautiful Kandinsky
on exhibit, and .*>mc lovely and startling things
by unknown newcomers.”

“Metis, ’ replied the Egyptian, dropping into
French— and they were all off to the discussion,

c 33

PALEFACE

save the silent Egyptian woman and the taciturn
Arab.

‘Here again Matthew w as puzzled. These per-
sons 'easily penetrated worlds where he was a
stranger. Frankly, but for the context lie would
not have known whethrr Picasso was a man, a
city, or a vegetable. lie had never heard of Ma-
tisse. Lightly, almost carelessly, as lie thought,
lus companions leapt to unknown subjects. Yet
they knew. They knew art, books, and litera-
ture, polities of all nations, and not newspaper
polities merely, but inner currents and whisper-
ings, unpublished facts.’

The european culture of this gathering of dusky
principals is m brief nothing short of staggering —
they can mix Picasso with a ‘tidbit of meat’ and
impale ‘ Futurism ’ on l lie wav to a potato: but at a
certain point in the ceremony Matthew Towns ‘left
the piquant salad and laid dowm Ins fork slowly.’
For he detected what is described as ‘a color line
within a color line/ It was the Japanese who had
made him leave ‘ the piquant salad/

The Japanese has east a doubt upon the honour-
able capacity of the american Negro. But the
Princess says that in Moscow' she has heard such
accounts of the Negro as to make her m fact sit up.

‘‘‘You see, Moscow' has reports/’ she says,

1 careful reports of the w r orld’s masses. And the
report on the Negroes of America was astonishing.
At the tune, I doubted its truth: their education,
their work, their property, their organizations;
and the odds, the terrible, crushing odds against

34

THE PALEFACE, THAT ‘NEGATION OF COLOUR’

which, inch by inch 4 and Ijeartbreak by heart-
break, they have forged their unfalterifig way
upward. If the report is true, they arc # a nation
today, a modern nation worthy to stand beside
any nation here."

4 “But can wc put any faith m Moscow ?” asked
*the Egyptian. “Are \\c n*>t keeping dangerous
eompajiy and leaning on bryken reeds?”

V‘ Well,” said Matthew , 4 if they are as sound in
everything as in tins report from America, they’ll
bear listening to.”

‘The young Indian spoke gently and e\enly,
but with bright eyes.

‘ “Naturally,” he said, one can see Mr. Towns
needs must agree with the Bolshevik estimate of
the lower classes.”

It is m this manner that Towns meets with 4 a
prejudice within a prejudice.’ The ‘lower classed
amongst Coloured people air, li seems, the Negroes.
The Negro is racially a sort of Proletariat , it becomes
evident, and is treated a little ‘de haut en bas # by
these brilliant asiatie conversationalists, plotting
world-w'ar by the side of the Spree, m the heart of
a White capital. ‘The Congo is Hooding the Acro-
polis'' — c\cn the Pimeess had said that, indicating
that the Congo Black was considered by her in some
way a come-down for the White Overlord, in whose
blood symbolically w r as that of Praxiteles — a very
different thing fronfa Congo Black. Still, the Prin-
cess is a bit of a Bolshie — it is evident from the start
that she docs not share' with her fellow-Asiaties
that inveterate aristocratism of the Hindu, which

35

PALEFACE

makes him such an uncomfortable customer in some
ways.

‘ “Wc American Blacks,” said Matthew Towns,
“are very common people. My grandfather was
a whipped and driven slave; my father was never
really free and died in fail. My mother plows
and washes lor a jiving. We come out of the
depths — the blood and mud of battle. And from
just such depths, I take it, came most of the
worth-while things m this old world. If they
didn’t — God help us.”

‘The table was very still, save for the very faint
clink of chma as the servants brought in the
creamed and iced fruit.

‘The Princess turned, and he could feel her
dark eyes full upon him.

‘ “ I wonder — I wonder,” she murmured, almost
catching her breath.

‘The Indian frowned. The Japanese smiled,
and the Egyptian whispered to the Arab.’

The party does not break up till after midnight.

‘It started on lines so familiar to Matthew that
he had to shut lus eyes and stare again at their
sw r arthy faces: Superior races — the right to rule
— born to command — inferior breeds- -the lower
classes — the rabble. How the Egyptian rolled
off lus longue Ins contempt for the “r-r-rabblc” !
How contemptuous w T as the young Indian of in-
ferior races! But how hutnorous it was to
Matthew to see all tables turned ; the rabble now
was the white workers of Europe; the inferior
races were the ruling whites of Europe and

36

• THE PALEFACE, THAT ‘ NEGATION OF COLOUR ’

America. The superior races were yellow and

brown.’

Matthew at least is comforted to find ‘all the
tables turned.’ It is pleasant to hear l he White
Workers of Eifrope and America described as the
‘rabble/ and the White Rulers as the members of
‘an inferior race.’ But it is disagreeable to lind the
American Negro discriminated against by people so
very little lighter than himself.

Dar\ 1 J ) nicvHS is a long book, tins is only the begin-
ning. It takes you baek to America and you pass with
Towns through a series of revolutionary adventures,
lie loses faith in the Princess, whom he loses sight
of: he becomes steward oil a railway and is almost
lynched by me mbers of the Ku Klux Klan, on their
way to a great Clan rail} at Chicago. lie suffers
prison, he makes lepoi Ls on the revolutionary poten-
tialities of Ins people, and so forth. At length he
is mated with the "Dark Princess’ and all is well:
he is eventually hailed as the "Messenger and Messiah
of all the Darker Worlds/ Everything ends upon
a Hosanna.

A few isolated quotations will show how useful
this book is to sum up all this literature, which al-
ready is so considerable in bulk, and which will of
course become year by year of more importance.
This first quotation is from a letter written by the
‘Dark Princess’ to Matthew Towms; she has told
him how luckv h<; is really to be in America, where
his

‘ “feet are further within the secret circle of that

power that . . . rules the world. That” [she

37

PALEFACE

goes on] “is the advantage that your people have
had. You are wofkmg within. They are stand-
ing here m this technical triumph of human power
and can use it as a fulcrum to lift earth and seas
and stars.

‘ “ But to be m the center of po\f ‘er is not enough.
You must be free and able to act. You are npt
free m Chicago nor*New York. But heie in Vir-
ginia you are at the edge of a black wortd. The
black belt of the Congo, the Nile, and the Ganges
reaches by way of Guiana, Haiti, and Jamaica, like
a red arrow, up into the heart of white America.
Thus I see a mighty synthesis : you can work in
Africa and Asia right hero in America if you work
in the Black Belt. For a long time 1 was puzzled,
as I have written you, and hesitated; but now I
know. I am exalted, and with my high heart
comes illumination. I have been sore bewildered
by this mighty America, this ruthless, terrible,
intriguing Thing. My home and heart is India.
Your heart of hearts is Africa. And now I see
through the cloud. You may stand here, Mat-
thew — here, halfway between Maine and Florida,
between the Atlantic and the Pacific, with Europe
m your face and China at your back; with in-
dustry in your right hand ynd commerce in your
left and the Farm beneath your steady feet: and
yet be in the Land of the Blacks.” *

Here are a few extracts fronj letters that con-
stantly pass between Matthew and the Dark Princess.

‘“Revolution must come, but it must start
from within. We must strip to the ground and

88

t HE PALEFACE, THAT 1 NEGATION OF COLOUR ’

fight up. Not the colored Farm but the white
Factory is the beginning; And the white Office
and the Street stand next. The white artisan
must teach technique to the colored • farmer.
White business men must teach linn organization;
the scholar mdst teacli him how to think, and the
.bank ,*r how to rule.” *

This third extract is from a Jet ter of the Princess
Kautilva m which she tells Matthew of the meeting
of the Central Committee and l he nature of their
deliberations.

‘ “I did not — I could not tell you all, Matthew,
until now. The Great Central Committee of
Yellow, Brown, and Black is finally to meet.
You are a member. The High Command is to
be chosen Ten years of preparation are set.
Ten more years of final planning, and then five
years of intensive struggle. In 1052, the Dark
World goes free — whether m Peace and fostering
Friendship w r ith all men, or m Blood and Storm —
it is for The in — t hr Pale Masters of t oday — to say.

‘ “We are, of course, in factions — that ought to
be the most heartening thing m human conference
— but with enemies ready to spring and spring
again, it scares one.

4 “One group of us, of whom I am one, believes
m the path of Peace and Reason, of co-operation
among the best and poorest, of gradual emancipa-
tion, seil-rule, eyid w r orld-widc abolition of the
color line, and of poverty and war.

‘“The strongest group among us believes only
m Force. Nothing but bloody defeat m a world-

39

PALEFAcfe

wide' war of dark against # white will, in their opin-
ion, ever beat sciAc and decency into Europe and
America and Ausiralia. They Iiuac no faith m
mere* reason, in alliance w r ith oppressed labor,
white and colored; in liberal (bought, religion,
nothing ! Pound their arroganct* into submission,
they civ: kill them; conquer them; humiliate
them . . . Last fught twenty-live messengers
had a pi cli mi nar\* conference in this r6om, with
ancient ceremony of wine and blood and Itre. I
and my Buddhist priest, a MohammedaivMullah,
and a Hindu leader of Swaiaj, were India; Japan
was represented by an artisan and the blood of
the Shoguns; young China was there and a Lama
ot Thibet; Persia, Aiabia, and Afghanistan;
black men from the Sudan, East, West, and South
Africa, Indians from Central and South America,
brown men from the West Indies, and — yes, Mat-
thew, Black America was there too. Oh, you
should have heard the high song oi consecration
and triumph that shook these rolling lulls!

4 “We came in every guise, at my command
when around the world I sent the symbol of the
nee dish; we came as laborers, as cotton pickers,
as peddlers, as fortune-tellers, as travellers and
tounsts, as meulictiits, servants. A month we
have been gathering. Three days we have been
awaiting you — in a single night we shall all fade
away and go, on foot, bj boat, by rail, and air-
plane. The Day has dawijed, Matthew — the
Great Plan is on its way.’”

Have you read Uncle Tom’s Cabin ? It was a
40

•the paleface, t^at negation OF COLOUR ’

book that was reputed.to have put the spark to the
gunpowder, and to have precipitated the American
Civil War. If you are disposed to dismiss the soit
of Film-farrago 1 have been quoting, \oi*nmst at
the same time recall that Mis. Hcechei Stowe was
as a novelist nef better than l)u Hois. I do nol in-
deed mean that any single book toda\ could ha\e
the same effect that Uncle Tom's Cabin had in a
simpler time, with fewer books. Hut hundreds of
sueh*books as Dark Princess , accompanied by Films
and plays, might reasonably bei xp< ct< dtolia\esonie
such effect — a particular consciousness being evolved
by this mass of books and plays, that is t he point.

That the Whites, on their side, are being given a
certain consciousness — this dual process is what I
have been discussing: for the Coloured Peoples are
urged to develop a consciousness of supenoiity, and
the same book seeks to lorce upon the Paleface a
corresponding sense of in/t run ////. It is this that is
unfortunate: the mere reversal of a superiority- -a
change in its colour nothing mine— rather than its
total abolition.

So far it has been found an easier matter to make
the Paleface put his tail between his legs than it has
to provide the Negro or Coolie with a ‘superiority
complex.’ The Negro is not really interested and
is much too happy-go-luckv to approach these
matters with the same earnestness as his mentors.
As to the people of the East, their traditions are
not propitious fcr # such a transformation, it is only
indirectly that they can be worked upon, though m
the end, and with the changing conditions of their
life, it will be accomplished.

41

paleface! <

The Kegro it would seem is the despair of the pro-
pagandist. In the kook from which I have just
been quoting there is a Coloured meeting in Atlanta,
of local Black ‘Radicals/ and one of them exclaims
at the end of it — ‘You couldn’t get one nigger m a
million to fight at all, and then they M sell each other
out/ The trouble of course is that the ‘nigger’ js
of much the same stuff as the White, he wants to be
left alone: above all* he wishes to identify himself
with his Paleface neighbour as far as possible, not
to be put in opposition, and so m confront. # He has
much more in common with Babbitt than with the
Coloured Intellectual.

The moment a Negro develops anv purpose and
ambition m life, his one idea, it seems, is to transform
himself into the nearest approach to a White member
of the respect able imddlcclasshis colour handicap will
allow. Matthew Towns, while a coloured porter on
a train, found that the Coloured passengers he tried
to befriend resented lus zealous attentions. Thus:

‘His colored passenger did “not care” to be
brushed ... he glanced at her again.

4 “Anything I can do for you?” he asked.

4 “Aren’t you a college man ? ” she asked, lather
abruptly.

4 “I uas,” he answered.

‘She regarded him severely. “I should think
then you ’d be ashamed to be a porter,” she said.

‘He bit lus lips and gathered up her bags/

It is a lip-biting business to go to the rescue of
your fellow ‘skin/ either Black or White. I am
sure that any one would have the same experience

42

' THK PALEFArE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL

who attempted to go to the help of the Paleface.
All this is exceedingly disappointing from the stand-
point of the propagandist; and indeed one cannot
help sympathizing with him m tins respect* for the
middleclass ideal of the Paleface is not a very high
one, in the first Instance : anil then the conversion
of 'millions of Negroes into coffee-coloured Babbitts
is not an exceedingly stimukfting picture for the
revolutionary mind, nor for tJie intelligent person
of whatever political opinion.

§ 12. The Black, and the Paleface Middleclass Demo-
cratic Ideal.

I will next quote a few passages from Quicksand
(Knopf, 1028) by Nella Larson. The following dia-
logue occurs between the Coloured girls who aie
teachers in a Coloured College.

‘Margaret laughed. “That's just ridiculous
sentiment, Helga, and you know it. But von
haven’t had any breakfast, yourself. Jim Va>lo
asked if you were sick. Of course nobody knew
You never teJl anybody anything about yourself.
I said I’d look ui oil you ”

‘ “Thanks awfull}," Ilelga responded, indiffer-
ently. She w r as watching the sunlight dissolve
from thick orange into pale yellow. Slowdv it
crept across the room, wiping out m its path the
morning shadows. She wasn’t interested m what
the other was saying.

‘ “If you don’t Jiurry, you ’ll be late to your first
class. Can I help you?” Margaret offered un-
certainly. She was a little afraid of Helga.
Nearly every one was.

48

PALEFAdE *

‘“No. Thanks all tfyc same.” Then quickly
m another, warmtr tone : ‘'I do mean it. Thanks,
a thousand tunes, Margaret. I ’ii> really awfully
grateful, bill —you see, it’s like this, I’m not going
to be late to niv class. I’m not going to be there
at all.”

‘The visiting girl, standing in relief, like *>ld
walnut against tfte bulf-eolorcd wall, darted a
quick glance at IF'lga. Plainly she w&s curious.
But she only said formally: “Oh, then you aie
sick.” For something there was about Helga
which discouraged questionings.

‘No, Helga wasn't siek. Not physically. She
was merely disgusted. Fed up with Naxos. If
that could be called sickm ss. The truth was that
she had made up her mind to leave. That very
day. She could no longer abide being connected
with a place of shame, lies, hypocrisy, cruelty",
servility, and snobbishness. “It ought,” she
concluded, “lo he shut down by law.” *

The manner of writing here and the dialogue of
Helga and Margaret is a good example of what
might be called Ihi conversion into ‘ old walnut,* as
it were, of the White middleclass democratic ideal,
of ladyhkeness and gciilltiiidiiluics*. The colour-
adjustment required, to the formulas of the worst
type of sentimental fiction of the Whites, ends in
absurdity and pathos. The ‘visiting girl, standing
m relief, like old walnut, against the buff-colored
wall,’ is a sad, uncomfortable parody of a Family
Herald sort of scene. It is the ‘Thanks awfully’
that comes from Helga, and all the rest of the ortho-

44

THE PALEFACE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL

dox Paleface technique* that makes the ‘walnut’
adjustment ridiculous.

But the hcrSine of this hook is described as aware
of this type of confusion, and all that is huifhhating
m it for the Ncgjo. In the ensuing passage Ilelga
is reflecting about the' dress-problem as it concerns
till' Negro.

‘Turning from the window, her gaze' wandered
contemptuously over the dufl attire of the women
workers. Drab colors, mostly nav> blue, black,
browfl, unrelieved, sax e for a scrap of white or tan
about the hands and necks. Fragments of a
speech mad* by the dean of women floated through
her thoughts — “Bright colors are xmlgar” —
“Black, grav, brown, and navy blue are the most
becoming culms for colored people” — “Dark-
complected people shouldn’t xvear yellow, or green
or red.” — The dean was a woman from one of the
“first families” — a great “race” woman; she,
Helga Franc, a despised mulatto, but something
mtuiti\ r e, some unanalyzed driving spirit of
loyalty to the inherent racial need for gorgeous-
ness told her that bright eolors were fitting and
that dark-complexioned people should wear yel-
low, green, and red. Black, brown, and gray
were ruinous to them, actually destroyed the
luminous tones lurking in their dusky skins. One
of the loveliest sights Ilelga had ever seen had
been a sooty black girl decked out m a flaming
orange dress, whfch a horrified matron had next
day consigned to the dyer. Why, she wondered,
didn’t some one write A Plea for Color l

‘These people yapped loudly of race, of race

45

PALEFACE

consciousness, of^ace pride, and yet suppressed
its most delightful manifestations, love of color,
joy of rhythmic motion, naive* spontaneous
lauglftcr. Harmony, radiance, and simplicity,
all the essentials of spiritual beauty m the race
they had marked for destruction.’

It would be easy to say to Miss Nella Larson (who
is I believe not a Paleface) that in her novel she was
full of 4 race-consciousness * but that she had ‘sup-
pi cssed its most delightful manifestations’ and pro-
duced too orthodoxly Palcfaeed an article: but I
should not say that myself to that particular writer,
for she seems to grasp many of the difficulties on
both sides of the Colour dispute and to have suffered
herself considerable And perhaps it may be as
well to add, at this point, that all books dealing
with Negroes are not purely propagandist, and that,
as with other things, a small percentage arc even
intelligent and so useful.

§ 18. A German Vision of Black versus White .

In England there is no equivalent at all for such
a book as Dark Princess . The mixture of the Op-
penheim detective-story and Woild-Pobtics does
not occur, m the field of station- bookstall literature
in which books of that order exist; the British
Public remains imperial and parochial, Publicschool-
bovish and domestic, mvetcrately non -political. It
would be worth no mystery-spifmer’s while to deal
with such a theme. In Germany it is a different
mat ter* Dark Pi uicess would be much goute by the
German — it should be translated. In France also,

46

GERMAN VISION OF RLACK VERSUS WHITE

with certain differences, the sensational 'World *-
book flourishes.

A novel alrilost identical with Dark Princess may
be cited, as my germamc illustration: lti Atlantis
by Hans Domnjik. Tins is one of a series of ad-
venture-novels dealing with the Future — m the first
lidlf of the next century the scene is laid. You
must imagine a World-political picture of half a
century fience m which Russitf and Asia are treated
as non-existent. It is supposed that the three
principal World-Powers at that time arc the United
States of Europe, the United States of America, and
the empire of the Negro Emperor, Augustus Sal-
vator, whose capital is Timbuctoo. The story opens
m Timbuctoo, and there is the Negro Emperor at
a great Circus, adulated bv the dense black masses
of his "Coloured’ subjects; and there likewise are
two Germans in a box, one a great industrialist, the
other an engineer. The Emperor Augustus, with
the object of tapping some world-shaking source of
power, has driven a gigantic shaft into the earth to
a depth of fiOOO metres. The german engineer m
the box is employed in t Ins undertaking. These t w o
excellent Hamburgers occupy the same box by pure
chance, though of course the engineer is familiar
with the name of the great industrialist, his Lands -
mann . But in another part of this vast assembly
may also be observed the villain of all that is to
ensue, namely Guy Rouse, the american super-
capitalist, m whos<* ‘stahlhartcn grauen Augon’ all
the most ruthless and detestable — yet admirable
Cdas war ein Maim, cm Mann von aussergewohn-
licher Grosse ... die verkorpertc Macht des

47

PALEFACE

Goldcs’ ruminates romantically Augustus) charac-
teristics of transatlantic super-capitalism can be
clearly detected. •

The Heroes in tins german book are strangely
enough (from the standpoint of an anglo-saxon
reader) the two Germans. The villain is (as every
European today would take as a matter of course)
the American: but I am afraid that the Negro Em-
peror is not painted Vo black as lie shoufcl be — in-
deed he turns out to be a sort of Matthew Towns,
installed as Kaiser at Timbuctoo, instead of as
Maharajah at Bwodpur — but actuated, on all occa-
sions, by motives so noble and unusual that he is
reminiscent of one of the great saviours of humanity :
even the Whitest reader would not, I feel sure, con-
sider that Tredrup, the german engineer, was quite
justified m destroying as he did (in defence of the
White Race) this Dark Deliverer's life-work — for
Tredrup event uall> comes back and blows up the
gigantic shaft, and so saves the White Race; it is
inevitable.

Tredrup is strongly pro- White — as strongly pro-
White m fact as the hero of an anglo-saxon book is
always anti-White, or rather pro-anything that is
not the same colour ns himself: but Atlantis is writ-
ten for a public incapable of that (pernaps senti-
mental) detachment which is such a feature of the
enghsh and amcncnn tradition, whether popular or
learned. — Indeed when present at the All-Black
Circus, it is as much as Tredrup, the honest Ham-
burger, can do to contain himself, when above all
called upon to witness the White lady Circus-rider
kissmg her hand to the Black audience ‘Schwein-

18

GERMAN VISION OF BLACK VERSUS WJHITE

erei verdammte ! * he cwlaims. # ‘Man mochte am
liebsten deni ganzen Dreck den Rueken kehren!
Mussen die armen Ludci hur ihr wcisses Flcisch zu
Schau stellen . . . und dann nodi nut Kusshsmdcr
dafur danken . ! ’ (It is interesting 1 o note that

in llu> Black Metropolis the performers most fa\-
omVd by the Blaek Public aij 1 White 1 , just as in
the greatest metropolis of the Paleface World
today the performers tend mfire and more to be
Black.)

The trtie goal of the Negro Kmpeioi is laid ban 1
in a soliloquy, which ensues upon a \isit from Mr.
Rouse, the american areli-villam Augustus Sal-
vator talks to himself liist about Mr. Bouse. Mi
Rouse (though Augustus cannot help admiring him)
' is blind, he think** ‘Ersiehl mcht die Grenzen, die
IcderMacht gezogen smd. Bn lteakhon musskom-
mcn . <lei Zeitpunkt is* mehl nu hr fern/ Then
Augustus Sahalor goes on to talk about himself and
to compare the brutal and selfish jiohcies of the
gieat White empr 101% Napoli on Bonaparte, with his
own.

‘Menu* Femde mnneii nneh den sehnarzen Na-
poleon . . . den gefurehtiten und gehassten.
YVie wemge smd cs, die mir gericht werden!

‘Was war sem Ziei? — Was ist meins v

k In uncrs'ilthcher Maehtgier versehlang er cm
Land nach deni anderen, bis er an Russland er-
stickte. Was tat ich? Ieh kampfte den Kampf
meines Volkes gegcti die wcissen Bedrueker. Den
Kampf um die Frcihcit nacli jahrhundertclangcr
Kneclitschaft Dos war die erste Tat!

‘Die bJrciten Lander habe ieh zu einem Reich

D 49

PALEFACE

zusamnicngerafft dctin* nur ein gecintes Volk
kant) sich bchauptcn. Das war die zweite Tat!

‘Die driLte — gleiehbcrechtigt in der ganzcn
Welt sollen die Schwarzen mil den Weissen
sein! . . .

‘Abcrdie Glc tc hbci’cchiigungwill ich — gutwilhg
— oder rmt Gewalt ! — Das ist mein letztes Zicl.’

As to ‘Uncial Equality/ what that ‘equality’
really signifies Tredrup learns fiom Jus impressive
friend, the great german industrialist — wlio is not
the dupe, of course, of such a word as equality — ‘und
dann hatto Uhlenkort zu ihm gesprochcn — lange,
eindnnglich, bis es a uch linn klar geworden. Die
Bedeutung da Frage: Gleichberechtigung der Rassen
— Glcichbrdculnid mil dem Absiieg der weissen Basse .
Krsle Stufe eines Abstieges , der writer und ivciicr zum
lint allege n fuhren musstc
The faithful Tredrup ponders these words: and
it is as a consequence of this political enlightenment
that he strikes Ins blow for the White Race, and
becomes a Natioualheld *

As for the sentiments of the Blacks with regard
to the Whites, it is the sonic ‘dark’ anger with which
Du Hois and so many other writers familiarize us.
Here is a typical sample of the conversation of Negro
workmen within the borders of the Negro imperium.

“'Wcshalb kommst du hier her?” . ♦ .

‘ . habgenug von den verdammtenWeiss-

hauten. Fehlt nur noch der Shambok, dann
war’s da wie fruher. Schwarzc — Hunde. Leutc
wic wir beide — Halfkasts — nicht viel mehr!’

‘Der erstc mckte.

50

GERMAN VISION OF BLACK VERSUS WHITE

‘"‘Verflucht die w<?issc Bande! . . Dieser
Ilochmuf, dieser gottverfluohte, der ;il)e Audeis-
farbigen als Vieh bohandolt.— Mein Ilerr Vater
war aueh nn Wcissei — Er hchte das heisere
Bellen cines Hundes. “Memo Mul ter sell war z,
lhm cheheh angetraut Jefferson lieiss leh —
s^hwarz auf wuss stchl's m memen Papioron.
Unddoch! Die Farbe — inemer Mutlc i Hint war
wohl besser gcw r escn — I «its. #Sie stempclto imeh
zum'Vieh. Aber!” Er bob drohend seme
Rcchtc*. “Der Kaisei ! — miser Kaiser —er w T ird
sie lehren, ei wird’s ilmen beibrmgcn, ob sie wol-
len oder meld! . . . Kneg!” zisehtc es dureli
seme Lippen “Kricg! Tnghch warte leh dar-
auf, dass cs losgeht !" '

Tins is pure Dcnk Piimrss — it is tin* true hot
Blaek duff! But, luckily for the Palefaces, there
is a Kerman hero in tins instance to put a spoke m
the Blaek w'hcel, m the person ol Tndmp.

The ameneati magnate has still to be reckoned
with, how r e\er — the sorrows of l he Whites do not
end with the Blacks— there is America!

Mr. House blow's a hole in the isthmus of Panama,
the Gulf Stream js diverted, and Europe returns to
polar conditions; Ireland becomes an icecap merely
and a new Migration era opens, southwards — away
from the polar conditions, brought upon Europe by
amcncan greed. Mr. Guy House, incarnating the
United States, is nol «mlv more ‘ruthless,’ but more
difficult to circumvent, than the magnanimous
Negro Superman. (As I said to start with, such
things as Soviet Russia, Asia, and so forth, never

51

PALEFACE

appear at all: they escape the attention of Hans
Domunk altogether.) The White Race is eventually
saved; it is installed on a brand new* Atlantis, which
howeVer has to rise out of the ocean to receive it —
nothing short of a miracle can save the White Race,
in this story.

§ 14. White Phobia Sn France. k

From France an entire library of books* to our
purpose could be selected. The Huxley elf France,
M. Paul Morand, will suggest lumself at once to many
readers: there are his Magic Noire and Bouddha
Vivant. A sensibility for all that is exotic has al-
ways been very common among Frenchmen — such
figures as Baudelaire or Gauguin are not singular. —
One specimen, however, is all I have space for : I will
choose Loin des Blondes , by Thomas Raucat.

This book is a desultory account of romantic and
mildly erotic ion? is me in the Far East. Its first
forty pages however is passed in descriptions of
Paleface life upon an ocean liner. We do not reach
those delicious regions that are Far from the Pale -
face 6 and all their works until we step off tlic Japanese
Packet at Yokohama. I will quote a little from what
passes upon the japanese Packet, and leave it at that.

Mr. Raucat falls beneath the spell of a lovely
german-american blonde. The affair is rather un-
fortunate; she becomes for him the symbol of all
that is Paleface. At their second meeting on deck
this is what takes place.

‘Le lend t main matin done, a peine eus-je vu
cette dame s’allonger sur son fautcuil de pont, que

52

WHITE PHOBIA IN FRANCE

je m’approchai d’elle. ( Je m’assis h, son c*6t6.

Comme la veille je la trouvai fcelle.’

•

But his ‘mterlocutrice’ is more distant: a ^md of
nonchalance aggressive * supervenes.

‘ Ironiquement. et par touches ldgferes, mon
lqterlocutrice me plaignit d’etre Franca is, ct sur-
tout Franjais du midi. Dans la hidrarchie des
races hunaames, h ce que je compns, je me trouvais
ix un rang plus clev6 que le n<?gre, mais tout juste.

4t ‘I4cmpire lerrestrc/’ disait-dlc, tv doitappar-
lenir aux races sup6rieures. Mais, dans la race
blanche, quelle est cello dont le sang n’est pas
m§le, et qui poss£de a Tetat pur les quaht&s du
chef? C’est la race germamque, les conqu£rants
venus du Nord, les tiers honmies blonds au crane
liaut, eeux qui out vaincu ct rejete les legions
romomes.”

* Cette femme, d’une voix cliantantc, et sans
se presser, citait Nietzsclie et Gobineau, les met-
tant en avaiit avee autant de fannliante que s’lls
eussent ete des membres de sa fannllo.

lkk Les racts mediterraneennes,” repetait-elle,
sont des races de second ordre, des races rri61£es.
La forme du crane, les pommettes saillantes, lout
denote l’apport du sang n&gre.” *

He retires very soon in face of this attack, and m
ny case he is due at the ping-pong championship,
ts he leaves the lovely but militant blonde — who
faisait de sa blonde »*r un ctendard’ — he reflects:

4 Croit-elle a la verite de ce qu’elle m’a dit ? Son
orgueil serait par trop inscns£. Et je me repre-
sentais, avec tous leurs petits details physiques

58

PALEFACE

les m files que mon interlocutrice de tout a, Fheure
jugpmt seuls dignes de l’a voir pour eompagne:
des mdividus brutaux, aux cheVeux frises d’un
rouge fauve, a la peau uniformcment rose, d’un
rose de foie gras. .Te n’avius pas l’unpression que
ces messieurs me fussent superieiirs en quoi que
ce soit.’

#

He takes pari in the ping-pong ehacnpionship.
There he meets another blonde.

‘C’etait encore line blonde qui etait qp face de
moi, et bien qu’elle n’cut pas encore quinze ans,
celle-la aussi etait sure d’elle-nieme, et se plaisait
a me prouver sa supenorite.’

He loses the ping-pong championship At last
the long sea trip draws to an end ; all the champion-
ships — of ping-pong, swimming, deck-tennis, dies**,
draughts, boxing, etc. etc. — are over. Asia is in
sight !

‘ . debout, et je regardais avee passion d<5-

filer la terre d’Asie. Mes pensees bouillonnaicnt.

* Je me sentais rassasie des pays que j’avais
jusqu’alors habites, oil la vie n’est qu’un per-
p6tuel ehainpionnat.

‘M£mc sur ee paqueboi, alors qu’il cut ete si
facile et agreable de n'v nen faire, les jiassagers
pouss^s par lcur alavisme s’etaient mgeni£s a
tourmenter leur et mon existences par des tour-
nois qui n’avaient pas toujours etc amicaux.

‘La nausee me prenait des hommes de race
blonde, et des manures de leurs compagnes.
Sans lutte, j'abandonnais k leur orgueil les con-
tuses que je quittais. Quel soulagement tout &

54

WHITE PHOBIA IN FRANCE

l’heure, quand je foulerais lc sol do l’Asifi, Pim-
mcnsc et mysterieux continent brun, aux femmes
eraintives ot presque csclaves, dims la douceur
dcsquellcs je me baignerais rommc a uuy source
fraiche. ... tel un plongeur s\mbolique . . .
j’allais me lancer dans le iu\ store . . .’

Hut before * plunging* into the dark and ‘mys-
terious’ jSast he delivers himself of an anti-Wlnt r*
incantation. *

‘En machant le dernier cigarc de Sims, je me
repctais eomme un enfant qui boudc:

fc “ J’ai assez des blondes. Je ne vcux plus les
voir.” ’

Such is Loin des Blondes : unlike the impulses of
those earlier Europeans, such as Doughty, Burton,
or Livingstone, it is not with the contemporary
romantic merely a desire to ‘plunge’ mio something
'dark’ and ‘mysterious’: this ejcpansiveness is ae-
companied by a hostile repulsion forzvhat is hjt behind .
Arthur Kimbaud was tin. first European of this
newer order of exotics.

Again, whether there ure such people as M. Itau-
cat’s lovely german-american blonde, who talk race-
war and (tobmeau upon the slightest provocation,
it is impossible to say: but what is certain is that
thcie are plenty of people similar to M. Raucat, who
expect to meet, or imagine they have met, such
militant blondes — whose nunds run, m shoit, upon
such lines of race* and race-rivalry and who have a
deep prejudice against their own skin.

England, although more than any european nation
m touch, for generations, with the ‘dark’ world, of

PALEFACE

Asia, Africa and America, is the least interested m
these questions, piobably' because it has been a
feature* of these contacts, with the Englishman, to
pretenc^ not to notice that they had occurred —
partly, too, for the reason that the sort of English-
man engaged where those contacts existed, m ad-
ministration or trade, for thinking had no great
turn,’ as Arnold put •'!. But France and Germany
arc as full as America of such racial awareness, and
their literatures reflect iL very thoroughly. *

The subject that niv last amerioan quotation, to
return to Miss Larson, brought to the front will be
a very useful one to dwell upon for some moments,
and it will also serve as a natural transition to my
next and final illustration.

If you could really persuade any class of people
whatever that they were essentially belter than all
the rest — more generous, gifted and intelligent —
then there would at least be t lie possibility of some
advantage to the world at large. If they should
behave consist! ntlv m such a way as to conform to
this belief, then, in effect, for the turn being they
could be said to be k better' 1 — if we were agreed upon
what was ultimately desirable On the otlur hand,
if it remained merely a matter of words — and in a
world given o\<.i tu Adva'li^im ut we aie only too
familiar with the way in which words take the place
of facts — there would clearly be no gam, but truly
a mass of fine w ords, and a great deal of ill-feeling
engendered in the fury of competition.

Experience has shown, in past revolutions, that
what apt to happen is that one class — inflated by
resounding words-- take s the* place of another class,

56

WHITE PHOBIA IN FRANCE

•

winch it violently dispossesses^ and proceeds to be-
have m exactly the sante way as the last. $o if the
Coloured population of America or Africa is to super-
sede the White, it is essential, to start wtth, that
they should not secretlv or oponls harbour, as their
dearest wish, aif approximation to the present con-
dition of the Paleface ‘master.’ The Paleface at
present, owing to adverse circumstances, has fallen
so low intellectually, is socially so impotent, and Jus
standards of w ork and amusement arc so mechanical,
that hc*cannot be taken as an ideal by any man. --
Yet I think that the most extreme propagandist for
the ‘Coloured Races’ would agree with me that the
trouble really is that when those races become poli-
tically ‘emancipated,’ as we call it, they tend at
once to approximate more and more closely to the
White world-standard. Thereby we get the same
situation that wo find m the ease of v nations.' locked
up inside historical territories. The more the latter
grow like all other nations in the <uirne situation, the
more ‘nationalist,* politically, they become; the
deeper their animosity towards all ‘foreigners,’ tin*
more (through seeing the same lilms and submitting
to similar influences of one kind and another) they
conic to resemble those ‘foreign’ devils, against
whom it is so easy to excite their passions.

The sort of situation you would have eventually
to anticipate is tins. In such towns as New York
or Johannesburg you will get a Black quarter, where
there will be large fiance-halls where nothing but
waltzes and mazurkas and possibly minuets will be
danced, by stately Negroes; and there will be a
Paleface quarter, where there will be a dance-hall

57

PALEFACE

with nothing but jazz. In the Black quarter the
beauty-chorus m the^evues \vill be AH While: m the
Wliite quarter they will be All Black. * The plays in
the Blaok quarte r will be such plays as Hamlet: the
plays in the White will be 111 God's Chillun. The
books the Paleface reads will be romances about the
oppressed Blacks, east m a most sentimental ai>ti-
chnstian vein: the Black, on the other hand, will
devour books about % Wh it e nuddleelass prosperity,
where all the characters will be slightly yellow.

But the Black will say fiercely that lie is -a better
man than the White because he is more dignified in
his amusements (pointing to his waltzes, his Shake-
speare Repertory Theatre, etc.). The White will in-
sist that hr is the belter man, because he is not so
emotional and jazzy as the Black, and because he is
responsible for Shakespeare, Moliere, and so on. (I
am a little indebted to Herr Donnnik for this pic-
ture.)

Long before sueii a state of affairs as that came
to pass, the races would, in practice, have inter-
married and their habits would have become identi-
cal. But it is no part of my business hero to draw
pictures of a problematical futiue, but only to study
the problems of behaviour at the present tune, as
they apply betw < *en Paleiaces a ud Coloured ’ people.

§ 15. The Effect of the Pictures oj the White Man's
World upon the East .

Instead of quoting something from Close’s book, %
The Revolt of Asia , to show how the Black versus
White problem is prolonged into and all over the

58

THE WHITE MAN’S WORLD ANI) THE EAST

•

East, I will take a few pages from Mr. Aldous Hux-
ley’s Jesting Pilate . Air. lluxley goes to an open-
air Cinema in Java and these are Ins impressions and
reflections (necessarily curtailed).

‘Fifty yards away we found an open-air picture 1
show. A crowd, as fishily dumb as the young
’ dancers, stood or squatted in front of an illumin-
ated screen, across which there came and went, m
an ^epileptic silence, the hwnan fishes of a cinema
drama. And what a drama ! We arrived in t ime
to sec a man in wluit the lady novelists call faull -
less evening dress,” smashing a door with an axe,
shooting scvcial other men, and then embracing
against her will a distressed female, also m even-
ing dress. Meanwhile anothei man was hurrying
from somewhere to somewhere else, in motor-cars
that tumbled over precipices, in trains that vil-
lains contrived io send full tilt into livers — m
vain, however, for the hurrying voung man always
lumped off the doomed vehicles m the nick of
time and immediately found another and still
more rapid means of locomotion. . . .

‘The violent imbecilities of the story flickered
m silence agamst the background of the equatorial
night . In sJcnce the Javanese looked on. What
were they thinking 9 What were their private
comments on this exhibition of Western civiliza-
tion? . . . The crook drama at Tunis is the same
as the crook drama at Madras. On the same
evening, it may 4>e, in Korea, m Sumatra, m the
Sudan, they are looking at the same seven soulful
reels of mother-love and adultery. The same
fraudulent millionaires are swindling for the diver-

59

PALEFACE

sion of a Burmese audience in Mandalay, a Maori
audience in New Zealand. \ Over the entire globe
the producers of Hollywood arc the missionaries
and propagandists of white civilization. . . . What
is this famous civilization of the white men which
Hollywood reveals? The*e are questions which
one is almost ashamed to answer. The world into
which the cinema introduces the subject peoples
is a world of silliness and criminality. When its
inhabitants are not stealing, murdering, swindling
or attempting to commit rape (too slowly, as we
have seen, to be often completely successful), they
are being maudlin about babies or dear old homes,
they are being fantastically and idiotically honour-
able m a manner calculated to bring the greatest
possible discomfort to the greatest possible num-
ber of people, they are disporting themselves m
marble halls, they are aimlessly dashing about the
earth’s surface in fast-moving vehicles. When
they make money they do it only m the most dis-
creditable, unproductive and socially mischievous
way — by speculation. Their polities are matters
exclusively of personal (generally amorous) in-
trigue. Their science is an affair of secret recipes
for making money — recipes which are always
getting stolen by villains no less anxious for cash
than the scientific hero lumself. Tlicir religion is
all cracker mottoes, white-haired clergymen,
large-hearted mothers, hard, Bible-reading, puri-
tanical fathers, and young girb who have taken
the wrong turning and been betrayed (the rapes,
thank goodness, are occasionally successful) kneel-
ing with their illegitimate babies m front of cruci

60

THE WHITE MAN’S WORLD AND THE EAST

fixes. As for their art — it gonsists in young men
in overalls and larg^ ties painting, m cqck-lofts,
feminine pbrtraits worthy to figure on the covers
of magazines. And their literature is the flatu-
lent verbiage of the captions.

‘Such is tlTc white man’s world as revealed by
■ the films, a world of crooks and half-wits, morons
and sharpers. A crude, immature, childish world.
A world without subtlety, without the smallest
intellectual interests, innocent of art, letters, phil-
osophy, science. A world whcie there are plenty
of motors, telephones and automatic pistols, but
in which there is no trace of such a thing as a
modern idea. A world where men and women
have instincts, desires and emotions, but no
thoughts. A world, in brief, from which all that
gives the modern West its power . . . has been
left out. . . . White men complain that the atti-
tude of the membeis of the eoloured races is not
so respectful os it was Can one be astonished?

‘What astonishes me is that the attitude re-
mains as respectful as it does. Standing m the
midst of that silent crowd of Javanese picture
fans, 1 was astonished, when the performance at-
tained its culminating imbecility, that they did
not all w r itli one accord turn on us with hoots of
derision, with mocking and murderous violence.
I was astonished that they did not all rush in a
body through the town crying “Why should we
be ruled any longer by imbeciles?” and murder-
ing every white man they met. The drivelling
nonsense that flickered there m the darkness,
under the tropical clouds, was enough to justify

61

PALEFACE

any outburst. . . v The coloured peoples think a
great deal less of us than ‘diey did, even though
Ihcv may be too cautious to aet on fheir opinions
. . . the share of Hollywood m lowering the white
man's prostigi is by no meam inconsiderable. A
people whose own propagandists proclaim it to lie
montall\ and nioially deficient, cannot expect to
be looked up to. if lilms were realh Irue to life,
the whole of Europe, and America would deserve
to be handed o\er as mandated territories to the
Basulos, the Papuans and the Andaman pygmies.
Fortunate 1\, they art' not true. . . . But l he un-
tutored mind of the poor Indian does not know it.
He secs the films, he thinks they represent West-
ern ieaht\, lie cannot see why he should be ruled
by cimimal imbeciles. As wc turned disgusted
from the idiotic spectacle* and threaded our way
out of the crowd, that strange, aquaimm silence
of the Javanese was broken by a languid snigger
of derision. Nothing more. Just a little laugh.
A weird or two of mocking comment m Malay, and
then, once more, the* silence as of fish. A few
more \cars of Hollywood’s propaganda, and per-
haps we shall not get out of an Oriental crowd
quite so easih /

There* is more than a touch m this narrative, I
know, of the sort of conventionality you would ex-
pect from its agreeably discursive author. But
nevertheless he has not a political u\c to grind and
is a more reliable witness probably than Mr. Close. —
The sentimentality of outlook is of course apparent
in his interpretation of ‘the strange aquarium sil-

62

THE WHITE MAN'S WORLD AND THE EAST

•

enc c* of the Javanese: it i\ t unlikely 1 hat the
javancse, maon, tuiusiaik or hmdu pictui e-goers are
either equipped, or disposed, to view the ‘imbecility*
of the White Man’s Film quite as Mr. Iluxht would
have us believe— for all their ‘impassible oriental*
lislmiess and their traditional, but todav quite non-
( xistcnt, wisdom. It is unlikely l hat, unless it were
repeatedly pointed out to them, th<> would sec'
anything discreditable m thc«cthics of Hollywood,
or be very critical of the abject intelligence dis-
played, or be averse to the violence and cruditv of
the action. In short, Mr. Huxlcv , I think, romanti-
cises his ‘OticntaT— there is a little too much turban
and grease-pamt, too much ‘Garden of Allah,’ in the
picture. When however that has been discounted,
% and when you allow for the fact that in every corner
of the East the russian agent is busy whispering
against the Whites — those overbearing bourgeois
interlopers — this account of a Picture-show in Java
is not without its instruction. As to Mi. Huxley’s
account ol the sort of Film m question, that, we can
all agree, is accurate enough, and it is after all just
from those standards that it is important to rescue
the Untutored Mind of the Poor Indian, or the over-
susceptible Neg**o. If the Negro, as dreamed of by
Alain Locke , is to become a reality, lie can find no
better w r ay of proving his ‘cultural’ qualifications
than by turning lus back altogether upon the
White Man’s World as it exists at present.

I have mentioned Alain Locke, and before ter-
minating this section of my book I will turn to a
debate which figured m the Forum about six months
ago. Alam Locke is a negro intellectual and he

63

PALEFACE

presented the ease for the Negro m that debate very
ably. .Mr. Lothrop Stoddard answered, with equal
ability, for the White Man, telling his dark opponent
that White America would never depart from its
policy of the * Colour-Line.’ I will not here enter
into the manv interesting issues brought to light by
this debate, but will confine myself to a few ob-
servations upon the arguments adxanccd by the
Black debater. Mr. * Locke shows with excellent
pointedness how the White World is confronted with
‘ an increasing social dileinu iu and self-contradiction,’
for the simple reason that the Negro Question is not
merely the Negro Question, but is ‘much more, and
even more seriously, the question of democracy.’
And of course in so far as the dogma, not necessarily
the practice, of the Soviet is merely a violent form
of democratic belief, the more ‘radical’ the Ameri-
can or any other Democracy becomes, the more such
a question as the Negro Question becomes strictly
the rule in vour system of belief, or you must ‘capit-
ulate,’ as Mr. Locke invites the White Man to do.

But Mr. Locke also has another no less seemingly
powerful argument: ho msists that the White Man
cannot dance every night to negro music, and throng
to Parties and Emveiar Joneses, and continue to be
haughty where the Negro is concerned.

‘Prejudice, moreover, as wholesale generaliza-
tion of social inferiority and cultural incapacity
. . becomes, as a matter of course, more con-
trary to tact with every dcca l< —yes, with every
day. . . . Apart from the injustice and reaction-
ary unwisdom, there is tragic irony mid imminent
social farce m the acceptance by “ White America’

61

TIIE WHITE MAN’S WORLD AND THE EAST

*

of the Negro’s cultural gifts, jvlule at the same
time withholding cultural recognition, the reward
that all genius merits and even requires.’

»

The ‘cultural 5 present that the Negro ha* made
to White America, and through America to the
whole White World, can be sumpied up m the word
‘jazz.’ It % is a very popular present and White
people everywhere have tumbles! over each other to
pick it up, and it has almost superseded every other
form of activity. But what it is impossible not to
ask is whether it deserves quite so large a ‘reward 5
as Mr. Locke claims for it. The White arts that the
Paleface has turned awav from m order to cultivate
these Black arts, w ere certainly as good as the latter:
nnd all that the ‘Afroamcriean 5 has succeeded m
supplying is the aesthetic medium of a sort of
frantic proletarian sub-conscious, which is the very
negation of those far greater arts, for instance, of
other more celebrated ‘Coloured 5 races, such as the
C hinese or the Hindu. The Chinese or the llmdu
would never have been captivated by nor even paid
any attention at all to that sort of inferior Black art.
But the White ha*: and it v s* very unreasonable of
linn still to dc ny social equality to the Negro: about
that there can be no question at all, under the cir-
cumstances. (It is only the circumstances that
ought never to be there.)

The other ‘cultural 5 lights mentioned by Mr.
Locke are, for example, Roland Hayes and Paul
Robeson. That black nightingale and that ex-
cellent actor are handsome presents to our civiliza-
tion: and if the Negro community has not had a

e 05

PALEFACE

band of distinguished philosophers, men of science,
and poets to point to, it is, I am sure, merely be-
cause the Negro has not had the opportunity ol pro-
ducing 1 them: there is no race that is not able to
produce distinguished philosophers, men of science,
and remarkable poets, m profusion. Where Mr.
Locke is mistaken, ip my opinion, is m talking about
the ‘cultural’ gifts of the Negro to the White up-to-
date, and as already handed over.

What Mr. Locke might say with great reason is
somewhat as follows: ‘Although the Blacks have
produced nothing but a barbarous, melancholy,
epileptic folk-music, worthy only of a patagonian
cannibal; and although this sort of art has been
fastened upon the White World, as a result of a
given set of circumstances, that is no reason at all
why the White Man should look down upon all
Negroes, or should too lightly assume that, given
equal opportunities, Ihc Negro would not produce
something that would put the foolish jazzing White
in the shade.’ That would be unanswerable, I think.

Mr. Locke, again, writes: ‘Successful peoples are
rated, and rate themselves, in terms of their best.
Racial and national prestige is, after all, the product
of the exceptional few/ In order to have grasped
that highly undemocratic truth Mr. Locke must
have risen far above the level of the average Pale-
face. When lie says that ‘it is not in the interests
of democracy itself to allow an illiterate, unprogres-
sive White man the convictionrthat lie is better than
the best Negro/ one is not so sure of the soundness
of his purely democratic principles. — The general
impression that lus article made upon me was that

66

FINAL OBJECTIONS TO ME AS ‘CHAMPION’

•

he stressed too much the ‘cultural/ m rather too
resounding a way, which left him open to to.o pro-
found a retort. *And the 'democratic 5 basis seems to
me as things stand an impossible one for argimient.

At this point I will return from my consideration
of the evidence provided by a series of books, both
in Europe and America, to the mam current of my
argument.^

§ 16. Final Objections to me as "Champion"

The German philosophers of the beginning and
the middle of the last century have perhaps provided
us with the best example of ‘internationalism 5 of
any people in modern times, that is, such men as
% Goethe or Schopenhauer. Schopenhauers father
gave him the name of ‘Arthur 5 because Aithur is
the same (lie argued) in all europcan tongues— at
least it is not cxclusn ely german. (It is intei estmg
to note that the ‘Arthur Press’ r< eeived that name
for a reason of a similar order.) And Schopenhauer
himself never ceased to entici/e Ins countrymen for
their german-ness. .Nietzsche alter linn did the
same. Goethe before him was quite as confirmed
an ‘internationalist, 5 in the sense that he always
advocated a universal language of Volapuc for
Europe, and hoped for a confederacy of states and
an abolition of fionticrs. — Today w r e are, with Fas-
cism, with Tnsh, Czech, Catalan, Macedonian,
Indian, Russian, Turkish, Polish, etc. etc., national-
ism (which invariably takes the form of abolishing
every local custom and becoming as like everybody
as possible), at the other pole to that attitude of mind

67

PALEFACE

so common a century ago. This appears to me very
regrettable indeed. 1 should like everybody to be
imbued with the spirit of internationalism, and to
keep all their local customs.

I have, in addition to my often expressed desire
for a universal state, another craVing, up till now
unexpressed (that is publicly). I would, if I were
able to, suppress all out-of-date discrepancies of
tongue, as well as of skin and pocket. I desire to
speak Volapuc, to put it shortly. I cannot ’help it,
it is if you like a crank, but I should like to speak,
and write, some Volapuc, not english — at all events
some tongue that would enable me to converse with
everybody of whatever shade of skin or opinion
without ail interpreter — above all that no shadow
of an excuse should subsist for a great Chemical
Magnate to come hissing in my car: ‘Listen! That
low fellow 5 (magnates alwavs speak in such lofty
terms, partly for fun) ‘says tk ja” — I heard him!
Here is a phial of deadly gas. Just throw it at him,
will you? lie won't say “ja” any more, once he’s
had a sniff of that ! ’

But this is not the end of the matter, where my
many disqualifications arc concerned. I am actu-
ally conscious of the many difficulties that must
beset any honest Palelace, called to the defence of
his skill. Although people of a lightish complexion
have overrun the globe, they have, he would be
compelled !u confess, taken with them, and stolidly,
irresistibly, propagated a ciwjjzation which is ex-
ceedingly inferior to many civilizations found by
them m full-swing, possessed by people of dark, or
‘Coloured’ complexion.

68

FINAL OBJECTIONS TO ME AS ‘CHAMPION’

•

So, confining ourselves to * skins/ if thi* Paleface
is told that he has been foolishly arrogant — his
* superiority * af the best a very temporary material
or technical one — he cannot iind much to Answer.
Further, the charge lias to be met of having imposed
a rotten, materialist civilization upon all sorts of
people with great cruelty oftcn, # of ha\mg wiped out
races of \;pry high quality, such as the Indians of
North America, 111 the name pf a God who was all
compassion: so he is convicted of hypocrisy of the
ugliest, of the ‘civilized* kind, on top of everything
else.

How can the White Man confront these charges?
As an Anglo-Saxon he cannot point to America and
England today, and claim that spectacle as a justi-
fication of his dominion. What is he to do? If a
timid man, as the Paleface often is, all those vindic-
tive pointing fingers will put him quite out of coun-
tenance.

Now I of course can find him the necessary argu-
ments to dispose of lus passionate critics, and I am
only too glad to, for his opponents are a stupid erew
for the most pari —just ‘to amuse myself* I would
help my Paleface. But all the same I recognize
that Ins case is dangerously open to attack.

Beyond this, as an artist I am convinced that all
the very tinest plastic and pictorial work has come
out of the Orient, and that Europeans have never
understood the fundamental problems of art m the
way the Indian, Persian, or Chinese have done.
These hasty remarks will have served, nothing more,
to define the nature of my disqualifications for the
role of White deliverer.

69

Conclusion

AS to the definition from the Institutes ,
/% quoted by Green, and all that deeper argu-
1 % ment of a view of hfe m which the principle
of the ‘common good 9 expands so that it includes
all that we decide to recognize mystically* as possess-
ing a spiritual essence, however remote in time and
place, and as to the ‘notion that there is something
due from every man to every man,’ 1 will hazard the
following remarks, which will serve as a Conclusion
to this introductory essay.

In Rome what constituted ‘abnormality 9 was
the being oil her a slave, a stranger or a minor (of
whatever age) within the potestas of some head of a'
family. A slave and, originally, a stranger, a ‘pere-
grmus, 9 was legally a ‘thing,’ coming under the ‘jus
quod ad res pert met. 9 The absolute legal roman
\ persona was only enjoyed, I suppose, by the eldest
male of a roman family. But originally the status
of a non-Roman was as ‘abnormal 9 as that of a
slave. All animals were naturally ‘things 9 — a lion
in the forest or a wild bee was a ‘res nullius, 9 but a
watch-dog or a sla\e was not "wild, 9 so could not be
affected to another person than his owner by cap-
ture — though if you felt like it you could acquire a
lion, for it (as we still say) was a ‘thing 9 not en-
tangled legally with a ‘person. 9 You would then
become its unique entanglement, and it would cease
to be wild, but would remain a thing.

To be normal was to be free in the roman state,
but it is now generally supposed that the ‘slave 9 in

70

CONCLUSION TO PART I

Antiquity, although outside the law of persons, was
nevertheless not treated as a tiling by his master to
any greater extent than let us say a drapery assistant
or a charwoman is treated as a thing. Th(; female
slave, of an averagely humane roman citizen, did
not call herself ip ‘lady’ but a ‘slave’; there prob-
ably the difference ended. It is unlikely that there
was any contemptuous disability attached to her
state to compare with that of the Victorian ‘skivvy’
or ‘slavey.’ If the choice # Iay between being a
‘slavey* and a ‘slave/ in fact, any rational person
would prefer to be a \slave’ I should think— without
ambiguity, sentimentality or, m a word, offence.

What I am attempting to get at here is that very
important factor of "sentimentality’ m the relations
of human beings, especially as that applies to the
wholesale reform of those relations, at present in
progress all over t he world. It is the verbal problem,
really; and the history of ‘sentiment’ is one of the
survival of words, after the fact they symbolize has
long vanished. It is possible under certain condi-
tions to have a person as a slave in the most effective
sense — to make him work himself to the bone, live
upon crusts of bread, call you ‘sir’ or even ‘lord/
and be in short entirely at your disposal, and yet for
you to have no legal right whatever over him, indeed
for him technically to be ‘free and equal’ — even for
you to be, ostensibly, his servant. We are all accus-
tomed to this situation as illustrated in the expres-
sion ‘servant of the Public,’ for instance. ‘Dictator-
ship of the Proletariat’ affords another example.
In such cases a minority governs a majority, often
with an iron hand, either telling the majority that

71

PALEFACE

it is its ‘servant/ or, in the other case, telling the
majority or Proletariat that it, the Proletariat, is
sovereign, paramount, and engaged' all the time in
ruling f itself. These (and many similar instances
will no doubt readily occur to you) are all matters
simply of words : and what 1 am describing is of
course the sort of government that we call today a
‘democracy’ — eithef with elective representatives
or with a small body of people who are kind enough
to ‘dictate’ to it. But m all cases it is government
by words. 1

Everything that the word ‘democracy’ implies,
however, wc get from l lie Romans and the Greeks.
And in spite of the fact that all the circumstances of
physical life and of our present society have suffered
an absolute change, yet in our institutions we still
perpetuate these ultimate distortions of a law
framed for a political body in every respect different
fiom our own. The roman body was compact and
efficient, if nothing else, and is not to be despised.
Bui either we should retrace our steps and acquire
that body (which is impossible) or else adjust our
laws for those vast, sprawling, dreamy polyp-organ-
isms we call nations, but so that those laws will
enable such degraded organisms to issue once more
as a formal structure of some kmu, somewhat highoi
than at present.

If, again, wc cannot all be ‘free’ in the roman
sense, or be ‘persons’ as were all Roman Citizcus,
then should we use their words? It is impossible
not to question the propriety of that : for not until
we cease to call ourselves free shall we be able to
recognize how unnecessarily servile w r e have be-

72

CONCLUSION TO PART I

•

come. The word ‘free’ is merely, as it were, a
magical counter with which to enslave us, it is full
of an electrical property that has been most male-
ficent where the European or American is concerned.

But beyond that I suggest that very few people
can be ‘free’ unfier anv circumstances, or equally
yoti may say that very few people can be ‘persons,’
still to crpploy the roman terminology, but in this
case abstractly. It is the ‘democratic ’ conceit that
is at fa hit, is it not? — it seems as though it were the
love of fine words that has undone us, as much as
anything. That is where the ‘sentimentality'
comes m and plays its destructive part. (It is that
‘lady’ in char-lady that has given us a false security
and made us blind to the novel facts upon which
, we must at last concentrate our gaze and recognize
that we are beset.) If people managed to resist
those verbal blandishments, they would, it is true,
be sadder (at first) but also wiser. That is of course
the ideal — to be wiser; anil no one can accuse me in
this of indulging in a verbal blandishment with my
w'ord ‘wise,’ for who on earth, in a general way, ever
w r anted to be wise ? ‘ Free,’ yes : but never wise.

But in saying that very few 7 men are able to be
‘free,’ or very few to be ‘persons,’ one must I sup-
pose be prepared for every hair upon the body of the
true democrat (or doctrinaire of the dictatorship of
Demos) to bristle. ‘Ah! that is very nice indeed,
that is charming!’ he says: ‘in a nation of fifty
million people there jjre to be a handful of “great”
persons (according to your aristocratic plan and
whatever you may mean by your mystic of the
person ) — that is to say. at any one time, a statesman

73

PALEFACE

or two, a poet or t\vo, a man of science or two, and
so on, and no more. But what of the rest of the
community? — where do they come # m? Are they
not to f havc an equal share in the statecraft, art,
science and all that constitutes a civilized state?’

In the first place the plan is, of course, not mine
at all, but nature’s. ‘Nature’ has repeatedly been
interrogated, often angrily, upon this very point —
it is a burning question. Why does not nature pro-
duce a dense mass of Shakespeares or Nektons or
Pitts? That has been the idea; and mrians have
been considered and plans worked out for assisting
nature m this respect. But it is conceivable that
nature after all may usually produce as many as are
needed of these ‘persons,’ and that this ratio may be
according to some organic law that wc arc too stupid,
or too conceited to grasp.

It is always possible that nature may not desire
a structureless, horizontal jelly of a society, as does
the modern democrat, but a more organic affair.
A ‘moral situation,’ it may even be, does not enter
into the comprehension of that legislator or creator
which wc habitually call ‘nature.’ Just the correct
number of Shakespeares, Newtons and the rest may
have been regularly supplied to us, and overcrowd-
ing at the top (a top and bottom being perhaps part
of this hierarchical, non-moral, creative intention)
have been guarded against.

But wc will return from tins region of idle specula-
tion to that of practical politics. It is not disputed
by anybody that we have evolved a very mechanical
type of life, as a result of the discovery of printing
and its child, the Press — the Cinema. Radio and so

74

CONCLUSION TO TART I

for Hi, and the immense advances in the technique
of Industry. ^Thcre is much less differentiation now,
that is, between the consciousness of the respective
members of a geographical group, and between the
various groups ^or peoples, than before machines
made it possible for everyone io mould their miud
upon the same cultural model /in the way that they
all subject themselves to the emotional teaching of a
series of{ilms, for instance*, alj over the surface of the
globe). t

The more fundamentally alike nations become,
the more fiereelv ‘nationalist* is their temper: but
also the more impersonal they grow (m the nature of
things, m a more intensely organized routine of life),
the more they talk of freedom, and of their ‘person-
ality.’

Both these paradoxes of the present age are, I
believe, the merest habits. There is very little sign
that the majority of people desire to be ‘persons’
m any very important sense: their conversation
about ‘developing their personality ’ is a sentimental
habit, merely, it would seem. If they were cured
of this habit nothing would ever be heard of their
‘personality* again. But government on a demo-
cratic pattern entails an insistence upon these myth-
ical ‘personalities’ on the part of their rulers : so the
habits remain and flourish. It is impossible to
bring them up-to-date, for they arc too chrono-
logically absurd to do that with. And the same
system requires that some purely sentimental and
unreal notion of ‘freedom’ should, at all costs, be
sustained. (It is like the cry La Patrie est en danger!
There w r as once a ‘country,’ that was culturally and

75

PALEFACE

I

racially intact, and* so susceptible of being put in
‘danger’; and in consequence the martial cry still
evokes a situation that is dead, and people flock to
defend 'that grinning corpse or historical spectre.)

Only a person can be susceptible of a right — that
is not a roman law but, a universal one. Wlnt is ‘ due
from every one to every one ’ (in the words of Green)
is either (1) a merely sentimental cliche — and that is
what it generally amounts to in contemporary demo-
cracies ; or it is (2) an entirely non-scntimental com-
pulsion — namely that that is due to merit, to per-
sonal character or to personal ability. There is
nothing else ‘due’ from one person to another.

Another and more exact way of staling this would
be to say — There is nothing ‘due’ at all from one
person to another : but there are persons who attract,
or compel, those services spoken of by Green, de-
scribed by him as mysterious debts on account of
which all truly moral men are constantly denying
and impoverishing themselves (of the things of the
mind as well as of the body — m order to be ‘the poor
in spirit’) so that they may adequately render what
‘is due from even one to every one.’ Bui this some-
thing m fact is ‘due’ not because the object of it is
‘human,’ nor because the skin m question is wrhitc
or black: it is ‘due’ because m some way we re-
cognize an entity with superior«claims to ours upon
our order, kind or system : as I see the matter, that
is the only ground for an obligation that exists. The
sentimental, ort he moral, elements, have no part in it.

76

CONCLUSION TO PART I

This obligation that all men aje under to personal
power or to the vital principle that resides m persons,
is apt to be bitterly resented. What the ‘puppet’
owes to the ‘person’ (to make use, as m the Art of
Being Ruled , of Goethe’s terminology) is the cause of
many heart-bur nrtigs and revolts, and is, where that
is possible, withheld. This is the case more than
ever wherp an aggravated ‘moral situation’ exists,
as at present. Indeed a ‘moral situation ' is essen-
tially a revolutionary situation, in the most frivolous
sense, wlien for a time the unreal and purely senti-
mental values, in a dissolving society, get the upper
hand. The Power to whom the direction is being
transferred dare not yet openly announce itself (this
is, I suppose, somewhat the case m Russia), there is

•only one Master-principle visible, above the surface,
still ostensibly effective, and that is weak. So the
puck flings itself upon it, and all for the moment is
confusion.

For what is the essence of a ‘moral situation’?
It is of course, and always has been (since those day*
when, to be the curse of the West, ‘morals’ were
first invented), a situation in winch a society loses
its organic structure and disintegrates into its indi-
vidual components — into its millions of individual
units. This may in itself be desirable ; but it natur-
ally isolates or disconnects for the time all that is
most powerful and exposes it to attack. As this
society becomes, instead of an organic whole, a mass
of minute individuals, under the guise of an Etluc
there appears the Mystic of the Many, the cult of the
cell, or the worship of the particle ; and Inc dogma
of ‘ what is due from everybody to everybody ’ takes

77

PALEFACE

the place of the natural law of what is due to char-
acter, to creative genius, or to personal power, or
even to their symbols.

I do not need to point out how intense this mys-
ticism of the Monad or ‘the Many’ has become, nor
how it has resulted everywhere in Wholesale aggres-
sion, aimed at anybody, either in the past or present,
possessing those ‘great’ qualities to whigh ‘some-
thing is due ’ from everybody. (The dail^j bchttle-
ment of or the personal attacks upon, in books or in
the Press, the ‘great men’ of our literary Pantheon
is one of the obvious signs of this sansculottist tem-
per.) It is almost as though the duty of the truly
moral man was as much to destroy what he regards
as ‘great’ (or possessed of the enjoyment of the
powers and delights of the mind) as to deny himself
such enjoyment: and a sentimental value for what
is little or ineffective, or merely distant, or incom-
prehensible, must be eagerly professed. *

1 will now apply my&elf to the question of how we
arc to define (1) a person; (2) the term ‘human’;
and (3) the conception ‘the common good,’ those
terms of critical importance that we have been up
till now using without much definition.

The idea ‘person’ I associate essentially with the
idea of ‘organization.’ What wc could say was
‘due’ to what is highly organize^! on the part of what
is less highly organized — that is the principal char-
acter of this obligation. If I were working this out
more thoroughly here, I should have to go into the

78

CONCLUSION TO PART I

question of how I understood this version of the law
of persons and the law of things, insisting that in
every case our fiuman Laws must be m the nature of
a ‘law of things/ For it is upon that basis that I
should naturally think of it.

All that is ‘due*’ from one creature to another is,
as f should describe it, m reality due to God, whose
‘things’ vwe arc — onlv the fictions as it were of that
Person.^ would be best for pie to recall here (since
the existence of a spiritual power or God, or any
reference even to that power, is involved for most
people with the sickliness of some debased ethical
code) the unsentimental nature of this obligation
I am supposing to exist. And this character of
compulsion, this intellectual character, applies as
•much to what is fc duc’ to God, as to what is ‘due’
elsewhere: and what is exacted from us else-
where is an expression merely of a more absolute
dependence.

So our dependence or our independence is, I
should say, an organic phenomenon, a matter of
concentrations and dispersions, which we familiarly
regard as the ‘personal’ attributes, when they be-
come highly concentrated. As to political inde-
pendence, or political ‘freedom/ it has very little
to do with personality, and so, in a fundamental
sense, very little to do with independence. Political
independence is the gift of a society, whereas inde-
pendence of character, or the being a person, is a gift
of nature, to put it shortly . That gift is held for our
natural life, irrespe ctive of function. A person can
only be ‘ free ’ m the degree m which he is a ‘ person ’ :
and if the most potentially effective and the wisest

79

PALEFACE

members of a given goeiety are obscured or rendered
ineffective, then it can only mean that that society
is about to perish, as an organism,* for it cannot
survive in a condition in which what is most vital in
it is obscured or not permitted to function.

How it is that wc are able to say that only a person
can be susceptible of &nght is because no sentimental
value is attached here to the word ‘right ’ : because,
in short, the law we are presupposing is a non-moral
law. Every ethical system has those ‘rights,’ in-
fested with sentiment: but such mere systematizing
of expansion-impulses is not worthy of the name of
law.

Does being susceptible of a right mean anything
else than being a creature who has recognized his
willingness (or whose willingness is assumed) to
abide by a set of rules, said to be for the ‘common
good" of the community, and who so conies to form
part of a certain social system? That is all that
‘human’ meant for an early Roman or a Greek. A
stranger was ‘abnormal,' susceptible of no rights,
and no more 1 human ’ than a wild bee or a lion in
the forest. — To be beneath the same law — that is to
be ‘normal.’ and to lie c human’: let that be our
definition.

In the modern nation— and this is of course the
case particularly with America— the working of this
principle is very easy to follow. The ‘ Frenchman *
as the ‘American " is a person beneath the same law as
all other ‘Frenchmen* and ‘Americans’ — though he

80

CONCLUSION TO PART I

may by birth and training be acliussian, who emi-
grated upon the Revolution, a Spaniard or Italian,
a Polish Jew or an African cx-slavc. ‘Human ’ in
the same way is a term describing anybody beneath
the same law as ourselves — it is a term of the same
order as ‘American’ or as ‘Russian.’

• k

But aty the natural leaders today in the White
world arc strictly speaking outlaw's. They air in
an ‘abnormal ’ position. (Some are intelligent enough
to realize this, but others still believe that they arc*
functioning, or that it is still possible to function,
traditionally.)

• I, for example, am an outlaw. I am conspicuous
for im clear appreciation of that fact.

What can I possibly mean by saving that the best
individuals of the curopcan race arc outlaws? 1
mean of course that we are now m the position of
local tribal chiefs brought within a wider system,
which has gathered and closed in around us: and
that the tax t or tradition of our races wlucli it is our
function to interpret, is being superseded by another
and more universal norm, and that a new tradition
is being born. (Of this more universal norm there
areas yet no accredited interpreters — for the Soviet
leaders arc too involved in opportunist polities to
lay claim to that position. I am perhaps the nearest
approach to a priest *>f the new' order.)

The reason wt are outlaw's then is that there is no
law to which w t c can appeal, upon w T hich w r c can rely,
or that it is w r orth our w'hilo any longer to interpret,

81

v

PALEFACE

/

oven if we could. JVe, by birth the* natural leaders
of the Whitt European, are people of no political
or public consequence any more, quite natuially.
Even, we are repudiated and hated because the law
we represent has failed, not being as effective as it
should have been or well-tlioughi-out at all, I am
afraid ; having been foolishly and corruptly adminis-
tered into the bargain. There is not one of us (ex-
cept such a venerable and ineffective figure as Shaw,
for instance) who is m a position of public Eminence;
nor will a single one of us, who is wort lianyt lung, ever
be allowed to attain to sueli a position. We, the
natural leaders m the World we live in, are now
private citizens in the fullest sense, and that World
is, as far as the administration of its traditional law
of life is concerned, leaderless. I T nder these circum-
stances, its soul in a generation or so will be extinct,
as a separate 1 unit it will cease to exist . It will have
merged in a wider system.

Speaking, simply m order to make quite clear
what I mean, about myself, if I wore a politician,
like Shaw, a man of platforms and cameras, I should
be very disappointed in the face of this situation.
But there are many reasons why ll suds me epute
well to be deemed a public life, to be treated as a
dangerous outlaw still to lilustrat' my argument
by limans of personal statement: I elo not desire
personal notoriety (anel that is really all that is at
stake), I would rather slip a book I had written into
the hands of the Public than \ would make a thou-
sand speeches : my abilities, and my interests, again,
do not he in the economic or the political field at all,
but in that of the arts of expression, the library and

82

CONCLUSION TO PART I

the theatre. But, far more important than any-
thing else is the fact that I do not happen to regret
the norm that is being superseded and rather lind
my sympathies on the side of the more mmersal
norm which is (a^ I see the situation) to take its
place. 1 am a man of the ‘transition,’ wi none of
us can help being that— T ha\e#io organic function
m this society, naturally, since this society lias been
pretty throughly dismantled and put out of com-
mission; though, of course, if >011 ask me that, I
would prefer a soeiety 111 wlneh I was beneath a
law, wlneh I eoidd illustrate and mteipret. But 1
have no desire to walk into the Past. 1 am content
to think a world-law will be better than a huv for
Tooting Bee, and politically speaking to leave the
matter there.

But these various circumstances tend to make me
a sort of extremist : for since w hat we have lost was
not absolutely to be despised, and should be bitterly
regretted if nothing is put in its place as good as it ;
and seeing liow T many chances there ahvays are that
after wholesale destruction no one will ha\e the
genius or the bonne volonlc even to do anything but
batten upon the rums and call that the ‘New -world,’
1 am what is calle d a ‘ bitter ’ critic of all those symp-
toms of the interregnum that suggest a compromise
or a backsliding or a substitution of opportunist
romantic policies (prepared to follow t very sinuosity
of the landscape, rather than build spectacular
escapes) for a policy of creative compulsion.

The reasons, then, that 1 should give for not re-
garding as a tragedy the fact of the personal eclipse
of all that is most intelligent m the Western com-

83

PALEFACE

munitics, and the filling apart of those communities
m the mass (as they grope their way back to an un-
consciousness), are as follows. Our political dis-
organization is our own doing, is it not? it has been
at our own hands, as socialists, liberals, radicals, or
artists, and not at the hands of another and hostile
organism, that we have been overcome: or it has
come about through physical necessity, in’the person
of our revolutionary Science, all terrestrial .societies
being called upon to coalesce into a vastor unit —
namely a world-society. If this can be effected with-
out more violence and confusion than the human
organism is able to endure, it should be the reverse
of a misfortune, T think I am right in believing.

But there are extremely few people m the Avorld
at this moment who regard the situation m this'
light. That is a very great pity and likely to in-
volve a great deal of uolcnce and confusion. The
remnants of our Western Governments, in the grip
of a network of financial groups, or War and Trade
Trusts, are behaving as though wo Avere called upon
to revert to a super-feudalism and the Dark- Ages,
and the Communists tend to play up to every gesture
of violence and to allow their doctrine to be con-
verted into a proletarian imperialism (this must be
taken as nothing more than an impression of one
not more informed than the next and merely judging
from report).

flow these remarks affect the questions to be can-
vassed in Paleface is as follows. The anti-Paleface
campaign has all the appearance of attacks upon a
disintegrating oiganism, by some other intact and
triumphant organism: it has very much too human

84

CONCLUSION TO PART I

and personal a flavour. What seems to infply is
that the White World is ‘finished/ that it is a cul-
ture or political organism that is going to pieces
under assaults from without and from within,
quite on the traditional, historical. Decline and Fall
pattern. And the Revolt of Asia, the Dari Pt meess ,
and such books, suggest that it is the "Coloured
Races,* or m the non-European, telio have done it or
are doing it, and arc to be the beneficiaries of a
reversal <|f political power. That is whv the tact-
less assaults of the Borzoi lug guns have to be
checked and are certain m the end to cause a dis-
turbance and make it worth somebody’s while to
take up the cause of the ‘Paleface.’ That cham-
pionship is a title that is going begging, 1ml for the
. moment only.

As good little revolutionaries, at all events, we
Palefaces have to claim our revolutionary rights —
that is mv message m Paleface. We ask nothing
better than to go o\er into the reformed world
order, am I not right? but we will not be pushed
over, no, nor barked at as we go by the Big Borzois
and other mongrels, or m short, march out to a
chorus of Dark laughter. That, if I understand my
fellow Palefaces, is the position. We arc somewhat
touchy about the legend of our despotisms, this is
as much our Revolution as anybody else’s. Indeed,
it is wc who have made it possible. It is more ours,
we can claim, than anybody clsc\>. The White
component in the world-combination will be of
exactly the same importance, as shown by the
revolutionary- weighmg-in machine, as every other:
but we will not be so gratuitously revolutionary as

85

PALEFACE

to alfow the Paleface interest to weigh less that
is the idea. Even a White revolutionary has his
rights, that is rnv meaning in Paleface . But I nm
‘purely and simply amusing myself/ as Paul would
say. I have no official position, White, Ited or
Black, nor do I covet one.

America has been called the ‘ Melting- FoV — it is
where more than anywhere else the world-state is
being prepared, m a big preliminary olla podnda. I
have called this book a Philosophy of the Melting-
Pot: so theie is no occasion to explain how it is that
America is the scene I have chosen for my mam
illustrations.

The outlaws like myself w ho arc preparing the new
Law and the new Norm have a very heavy respon-
sibility It is their business to detach themselves
entirely from the specific interests of the human
component or group from which they have come,
whether Paleface, Negro, Indian or Jew. That i'*
why you find me , m Paleface , m a position of defence
where my poor downtiodden Paleface brothel is
concerned. And because a certain short-sighted
cockiness in the Paleface makes him sometimes
scorn my assistance and causes him to be blind to
the novel dangers of his situation, I do not for that
reason abandon my impartial ministrations.

The new Law will effectively take shape, it is very
likely, in the continent of America, for the same
reason that the metropolitan position of Rome
caused the jus gentium to lx* developed practically

8C

CONCLl SION TO PART I

th'T** her tin elsewhere, m^hc ordinary fcoursc
of the d:i’ ! y routine of the Praetor Pcreginuis — In
R.ane the magistral appointed to deal with the
eases m which foreigners were invoked (and to
whom the roman code was not applicable) was the
Praetor Ptrcgrinfls. As Rome grt w in importance,
foreigners trorn all quarters of the world made their
appearance; and Hie Praetor Peregruuis had forced
upon him what w s to some extent a constant exer-
cise 4 in*<tpuiparativi jurisprudence. It would he
*iisc Acred no uoubt aftei a tune that, underlying
ilie respect * * ules of even the most widely separ-
ated s ntes (v h bjetk the Praetor Peregrin us
had h( (ore hmi; there was a sort of rough system
common t<. all It was upon this nunc universal
• \stcm » il sorted itself out in lus daily practice)
ia P <<to»' lViegnnus would base lus judg-

ig a* any decision involving a
-t o one code and another, he would

nnurahy •), it law that t xpmenee had show n

him to he nl »re universal application.

The mam pr >les of 1 lie jus gentium w r eie linaily
incorporated m '»» roman system, which would
benefit by acquiring a more universal applicability.
The well-known though disputed identification by
Sir Henry Maine of the jus gentium with the jus
naiuralv ('jus naturale is jus gentium seen m the
light of th< Stoic Philosophy') may serve to em-
phasize still more the significance of this juristic
evolution, consequent upon the meeting and traffick-
ing of nations.

We are in a world in w r hich we are all in some
sense outlaw's, at the moment, for our traditions

87

PALEFACE

have Sill been too sharply struck at and broken and
no new tradition is j^et born. Some such process as
occurred in the administration of thfc Praetor Pcre-
grmus is occurring today in every quarter of the
globe — there is no country that is not in that sense
metropolitan. Meantime, we art, technically, in
an ‘inhuman 9 situation. This is a very delicate
position. It is nccdssary, I think, m consequence,
to insist a little upon the essential (though imperfect)
humanity of any ill-treated and threatened &roup —
such, for instance, as the Palefaces — who so recently
were 1 he rulers of the world, and who are, as a result,
looked at somewhat askance, in the new dispensa-
tion, and perhaps hustled, on occasion.

As to the ‘common good, 9 what can be said briefly
on Hint head, in connection with the things we are
discussing, is as follows.

No successful human society could be founded
upon a notion of the ‘common good 9 which at-
tempted to weigh out to everybody an equal amount
and kind of ‘good. 9 The ‘pleasures of the mmd, 9
for instance (which Green denied himself), cannot be
equally distributed unless you have a community
composed of standard minds, turned out according
to some super-mechanical method. It is exactly
that sort of regularity or quantitative fixity that it
is necessary to avoid, for the sake of the mutual
satisfaction of the members of*any social group.

The ‘common good 9 can only mean organic ‘good, 9
the functional 'good 9 belonging to some social

88

CONCLUSION TO PART I

organism. There cannot be any ‘good’ comnton to
an unorganized mob of ‘things.’ It is only when a
mob of things *is organized, and has become pos-
sessed of persons (interpreting and administering its
laws and its tradition) that it can be said to have a
‘common good.’ »A ‘common good’ is, m short, an
expression of the law of ‘normal’ beings (m the jur-
istic sense.of beings beneath a Common law), and it
reduces itself, in the end, to the proper working of
their paH’Cular law — where that law is healthy and
effective, operating m a naturally dosed system.

A society is formed, in the first instance, it might
be said, by the secretion of some spiritual quiddity
(which is the germ of the norm or law) by some
single powerful family, or group of active families.
Jt is this norm, a« it matures and acquires the strength
of habit, that holds them together. From tilt start
that norm is incarnated in the chiefs and leaders of
the group, and becomes personal, as it were. It is
to those leaders that everything is ‘due’ on the pari
of the other members of the gioup.

For Green, however, the ‘common good* would
mean something entirely different from the laws of
this organic complex of relationships. For him the
‘good’ had become a (falsely) personal ‘good,’ and
human society was conceived as a horizontal egal-
itarian plane of equal and undifferentiated ‘persons.’
There were no ‘things’ in this world at all — except
‘lower animals,' stones and trees. For him, as a
typical ninctccnth-ccntury revolutionary moralist,
until every man, woman and child (but especially
every woman and child), m the entire world, had
been accommodated with all the ‘pleasures of the

89

PALEFACE

mind*’ of Plato, G*?en could know no peace. And
(to turn from the pleasures of the mind of Plato to
things about which there is at any time likely !o be
more trouble) if one individual had a wireless set, or
a Bentley or a Morris-Oxford, then everybody must
have them — quite irrespective oPthc fact that it is
evident to any fairly intelligent and observant 'per-
son today that the possession of these machines is
not spiritually of very great advantage to the aver-
age man, and so such possessions can hajrdly be re-
garded as eligible for a position among that aggregate
of things we agree to call the ‘common good.’

The ‘common good’ can, then, only be defined,
in a general way, as the law of any social organism.
But perhaps any social organism is too sweeping:
for a society can be so low in the vital scale that it is.
incapable of realizing anything that can properly be
described as a ‘good’ at all. Most of our Western
democracies are rapidly reaching that biologic level.
So it must be the law\ I think, of a fairly active and
perpendicular--- a well-proportioned, elastic, orderly
— society. — As for the indefinite expansion of the
idea of the ‘good,’ or of the ‘human’ without limit
of time or place — so that any number of units may
be embraced by a law that is unique — there again
the emotional or sentimental expansi venose of the
protestant moralist seems to me to be at fault, and
to provide for us, m place of a well-built society, an
emotional chaos. That type of feeling must to my
mind result m social ideas that are at once meta-
physically impossible and foolish, or, from the stand-
point of the engineer or the artisl , in structures that
will be disgustingly unsatisfactory or else quite

90

CONCLUSION TO PART I

meaningless — a sort of rainbow-bridge, of crude and
stupid tint, stretched from nowhere to nowhere.

I do not wish*to seem loo severe ot even perhaps a
trifle roman, but I must pursue my analysis of this
type of ethics a step further, for else the word
‘human’ will be left up m the air, I am afraid, or
get mixed up with Green’s lowest animals/ And
yet the ‘ JSe suis Itomam — je suis liunimn’ of Maui-
ras is a formula for the proveneal countryside — and
a very g?od one — rather than for the american
‘Melting-pot/ into which we all must slip (and, in
my view, should slip, although I say so without any
dogmatism).

, Outside what would popularly be regarded as the
‘human’ norm, he all the other forms of the animal
•creation. In older to know what we really mean
by * human/ we cannot escape considering that ir-
rational world ; any more than in considering what
appears on the face of it the ‘human’ world, can we
help discriminating between the rational and the
irrational. There* is no question but that a dog, for
instance, of a charming character, is more worthy,
m the abstract, of our interest and sympathy, than
are very many men, both Paleface and Coloured.
If you isolate that particular ‘lower animal, ’and that
inferior man, then the animal is the more k human ’ —
gentler, better, and more rational. To that pro-
position, I am sme, I shall have* no difficulty in
receiving your assent (although if the Borzois are
listening, they no doybt will bark, for they will per-
ceive that this might raise difficulties for them).

A deer or a horse is a nobler creature physically,
perhaps, than many men; and some individual

91

PALEFACE

horses and deer would be superior spiritually to
them. Yet those animals could not be said to come
within a human canon, or to be themselves ‘human’ :
and therefore there is nothing ‘due ’ from us to them
or vice versa— or only a sentimental something,
which is m its purest state thtft something that
Green, or the primitive Christian, seizes upon, exag-
gerates, transfers to men, and proceeds Jo convert
into the peculiar property of man, calling it ‘love*
and the ethical sense. But indeed it i$ most un-
reasonable when the ‘lower animals’ are excluded
from such ’ human ’ canons.

Ethics as conceived by the author of the Pro-
legomena 1o Ethics, whom I have chosen for my illus-
trations m this essay, should be entirely confined,
perhaps, to questions regarding our relations to
animals, other than men. The science of Ethics
altogether might find its true r61o in the regulation
of such relationships. Dogs, horses, eats and cows
arc the natural, and the true, clients of the moral
philosopher, I believe. As such, the exercise of
ethical emotions would give rise to very grave
problems indeed : and they would involve questions
very much more difficult to meet than those raised
by the purely human variety of ethical speculation:
we should immediuUly be confronted with the pro-
blem of the pork-cliop and the mutton-cutlet, in
fine, or of the draught-horse. And I need not point
out to the reader possessed of an acute political eye
what repercussions this newly demarcated ethical
science would have in the world of revolutionary
publics. Tn a flash everything would be m an
uproar.

92

CONCLUSION TO PART I

I believe the problem of the ‘mutton -cutlet ’"will
yet come into it £ own, and become one of first-class
political importance. — But of all neglected problems
of that order, the Paleface problem is to my nimd
the first on the list — if only because, m that instance,
we ourselves are the mutton-chop. I am sorry to
terminate this part of my cssqy upon this sordid
animal no£c.

9fi

PART II

PALEFACE

* OK

LOVE? YVIIAT1IO! SMELLI\£ STIi A \ OENKSS ’

I

c There is something direct . brutal , and fine m
the nature of l Incas . It is not quite an accident
that in our games he is always t Ik* Indum, iclulc
I am the despised White , the Paleface .'

A Story 'Telle?' s Story . She? wood
Anderson .

1 1 7 cent ojten to the movie studios and watched
Hit men and thi women at work. Children, play-
ing with dreams — dreams of an hnoic kind of
despeiado eon boy, doing good deeds at the busi-
ness end of a gun— dreams oj an ever-virtuous
womanhood walking amid x tee - American
dreams — Anglo-Saxon dreams' — (Ibid.)

4 The Indian way of consciousness is difjneni
from and Jatal to our way of consciousness .

Our way of consciousness is different pom and
fatal to the Indian .'

Mornings in Mexico. I). II. Lawrence.

4 The consciousness of one branch of humanity
is the anmhilaiioji oj the consciousness oj
another branch. That is. the life oj the Indian,
his stream of conscious being , is just death to
the While man — (Ibid.)

INTRODUCTION

I N the following essay I quote very fully and
examine at considerable length passages from
Mr. D. H. Lawrence, Mr. Sherwood Anderson,
and other writers using popular tjarratne to present
ideas and Vven religions. That so much careful
attention, should be given to artists in lietion, or to
works written, it is felt, m the lirst instance, to
amuse, may seem strange to some people. It is not
usual to honour them in this way. Weic it the
analysis of the conditions favourable to a virus, of
some definite ‘ social problem ’ (wit h t he accompany -
ing statistics, references to philosophic and socio-
logical treatises, and so on), it would not appear at
all strange to devote a great deal of space to a minute
examination ol things that were in thcniscLes, pei-
haps, not very important or interesting.

What I wish to stress, then, is that these essays do
not come under the head of 'literary criticism ’
They are written purely as investigations into con-
temporary states of mind, as these are displayed for
us by imaginative writers pretending to give us a
picture of current life ‘as it is lived,’ but who in fact
give us much more a picture of life as, according to
them, it should be lived. In the process they slip in,
or thrust in, an entire philosophy, wln< h they derive
from more theoretic fields, and which is usually not
at all the philosophy $>f the sort of people they por-
tray. The whole of Paleface , in fact, deals with and
is intended to set m relief the automatic processes
by which the artist or the writer (a novelist or a poet)

G 97

PALEFACE

obrains lus formularies: to show how the formulas
lor lus progress are issued to him, how he gets them
by post, and then applies them.

According to present arrangements, in the pre-
sence of nature the artist or w r ritcr is almost always
aprionst, we suggest. Further, he tends to lose Ins
powers of observation (which, through reliance upon
external nature, in the classical ages gave him free-
dom) altogether. Yet observation must be the only
guarantee of Ins usefulness, as much as of his inde-
pendence. So he takes Ins nature, m piacticc, from
theoretic lields, and resigns himself to s< e only what
conforms to his syllabus of patterns, lie deals with
the raw life, thinks he sees arabesques in it ; but m
fact the arabesques that lie 1 secs more often than not
emanate from lus theoretic borrowing, lie has put
t hem there. It is a naturc-for-techmcal-purposcs of
which lie is conscious. Scared} anj longer can he
be said to control or be even in touch with the raw
at all, that is the same as saving he is not in touch
with nature • he rather dredges and excavates things
that are not objects of direct perception, with a
science he has borrowed ; or, upon the surface, ob-
serves only according to a system of opinion which
hides from him any but a highly selective reality.

The mere fact- with the artet or interpreter of
nature — that lus material is living, exposes him to
the temptation of a drowsy enthusiasm for paradox,
since ‘life’ is paradox (sprinkled over a process of
digestive sloth), and all men live, actually, upon the
amusement of surprise. fc What man is this who
arrives? A beautiful, a wonderful stranger!’ they
say and all strangers are wonderful or beautiful.

08

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

‘ What will the day bring forth ? f There will be some
pleasant novelty* at least of that we can be certain !
— a novelty with whose appearance we have had
nothing to do.’ ‘Life’ is nof-knowing: it is the
surprise packet : so, essentially unsoloctivc, if nature
can be so arranged as to yield him as it wen a system
of surprises, the artist will searccjjv take the trouble
to look bclfind them, to detect the principle of their
occurrence, or to refleet that for ‘surprises,' for the
direct life of nature, they are a little over-dramatic
and particularly pat. So he automatically applies
the accepted formula to nature; the corresponding
accident manifests itself, like a djinn, always with
an imposing clatter (since it is a highly selective
‘acctdc lit ’ that undci stands its part): and the artist
1 s perfectly satisfied that nature lias spoken. He
does not see at all that ‘nature’ is no longer there.

You are merely describing, you may say r , the fam-
ous ‘subjective 9 ehaiaeter of this time, in your own
way and a little paradoxically. If I could surprise
anybody into examining with a purged and renewed
sense what is taken so much for granted, namely our
subjecti\ity T ’ — though who or what is the subject
or Subject? — 1 should have justilied any method
whatever. But I am anxious to capture the atten-
tion of the reader in a way r to which he is less accus-
tomed, a less paradoxical way.

In Western countries the Eighteenth -century man
and the Puritan man are perhaps the most marked
types that survrvc, disguised of course in all sorts
of manners, and differently combined. We have
learnt to live upon a diet of pure ‘fun,’ we are sensa-
tionalist to the marrow. Ours is a kind of Wembley-

09

PALEFACE

life of raree-showsj of switchbacks and watershoots.
We observe the gleeful oyc of Mr. jBertrand Russell
as he appears suspended for a moment above some
formal logical precipice. Or there is Mr. Roger Fry
in the company of his friend, Mr. Bell, sustaining
delightedly shock after shock trom the handles of
some electric machine, or m oilier words from the
unceremonious wgour of some painting which,
charged with a strange zeal, outrages in tprn all the
traditional principles of his English training and his
essential respectability. Then there arc the round-
abouts for the Peter Pan chorus, swings for exhibi-
tionists, mantle grottoes and the lecture-tents of the
gymnosophists. Oh it is a wild life that wc live in
the near West, between one apocalypse and another!
And the far West is much the same, wc are told, hi
a word, we have lost our sense of reality. So wc
return to the central problem of our ‘subjectivity,’
which is what wc have m the place of our lost sense,
and which is the name by which our condition goes.

Elsewhere I have described this in its great lines
as the transition from a 'public to a piivate way of
thinking and feeling. The great industrial machine
has removed from the individual life all responsi-
bility. For an individual business adventurer to
succeed as lie could in the first days of industrial
expansion, will to-morrow be impossible. It is
evidently m these conditions that you must look for
the solid ground of our ‘subjective’ fashions. The
obvious historic analogy is to^be found in the Greek
political decadence. Stoic and other philosophies
set out to provide the individual with a complete
substitute for the great public and civic ideal of the

100

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

happiest days of Greek freedom : *with their thoQght
we are quite at home. I will lake the account of
these circumstances to be lound m Cairtl.

‘Even in the time of Aristotle a great ehangt
was passing o\ er the public life of Greece, by which
all its ethical traditions weie discredited . . . Ii>
till* victories of Philip and Alexander the city states
of Grocer were reduced to the frank of subordinate
municipalities m a great military empire, and,
under t[ie dynasties founded by Alexander’s
generals, they became the plaything and the pnze
of a conflict between gi eater powers, which they
could not substantially influence ... we may
fairly saj that it was at tins period that the diu-
sion between public and private life, which is so
, familiar to us but w as so unfamiliar to the Greeks,
was iirst dctisn cly established as a fact. A private
non -pohl leal life became now, not the exception,
but the rule, not the abnormal choice ol a few
recalcitrant spirits, like Diogenes or Aristippus,
but the inevitable lot of the great mass of man-
kind. The* individual, no longer finding Ins happi-
ness or misery closely associated with that of a
community . . . was thrown back upon lm own
resources. . What Rome did was practical!}
to pulverize the old societies, reducing them to a
collection of individuals, and then to hold them
together by an external organization, military and
legal ... its effect (that of roman power) was
rather to level and disintegrate than to draw' men
together .’ — (Evol %f Theology.)

There is not much resemblance, outwardly, be-

101

PALEFACE

tw£6n the pulverization by one central power, sucli
as that of Rome, and the pulverization of our social
and intellectual life that is being effected by general
industrial conditions all over the world. But there
is, in the nature of things, the same oppressive re-
moval of all personal outlet (sufficiently significant
to satisfy a full-blooded business or political Ambi-
tion) m a great public life of indnulual enterprise:
and, in the West, at the same time, through the
agency of Science, all our standards of "existence
have been discredited. Many people protest against
such an interpretation of what has happened to us
in Europe and America* they do not see that it has
happened, they say that at most ‘there may be a
danger of’ it: vet every detail of the life of any
individual you choose to take, in almost any career,
testifies to its correctness.

As to what is at the bottom of this immense and
radical translation from a free public life, on the one
hand, to a powerless, unsatisfying, circumscribed
private life on the other, with that we are not here
especially occupied. But, the answer lies entirely,
on the physical side, with the spectacular growth
of Science, and its child. Industry. The East is
in process of being revolutionized, however, in
t lie same manner as the West T ct me quote Mr.
Russell:

‘The kmd of difference that Newton has made
to the world is more easily appreciated where a
Newtonian civilization is brought into sharp con-
trast with a pro- scientific culture, as for example,
m modern China. The ferment m that country
is the inevitable outcome of the arrival of Newton

102

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

upon its shores. ... If Newtctn had never liwd,
the civilization of China would have remained un-
disturbed, and I suggest that v r e ourselves should
be little different from what we were in the middle
of the eighteenth century.’ — (ltadto Times , April
8th. 1028.) •

If you substitute Science for NeA'ton (for if Newton
‘had never lived’ somebody else would) that ex-
plains our condition. We have been thrown back
wholesale from the external, the public world, by
the successive waves of the ‘Nevvlonian’ innovation,
and been driven down into our primitive private
mental ca\cs, of the unconscious and I he primitive.
We are the cave- men of the new mental wilderness.
That is the description, and the history of our par-
ticular ‘subjectivity.’

In the arts of formal expression, a ‘dark night of
the soul’ is settling down. A kind of mental lan-
guage is m process of invention, flouting and ovei-
ruling the larynx and the tongue Y<t an art that
is ‘subjective’ and can look to no common factors
of knowledge or feeling, and lean on no tradition, is
exposed to the necessity, lirst of all, of instructing
itself far more profoundly a> to the origins ol its im-
pulses and the nature and history of the formulas
with which it works; 01 else it is committed to be-
coming a zealous parrot of systems and judgments
that reach it from the unknown. In the latter cast*
m (dfeet what it does is to bestow authority upon a
hypothetic something 01 someone it has never seen,
and would be at a loss to describe (since m the ‘sub-
jective’ there is no common and visible nature), and

103

PALEFACE

progressively to su! render its faculty of observation,
and so sever itself from the external field of im-
mediate truth or belief — for the Anly meaning of
‘nature’ is a nature possessed m common. And
that is what now lias happened to many artists: they
pretend to be their own authority, but they are not
even that

It would not be # easv to exaggerate the naivete
with which the average artist or \mtcr to-day, de-
prived of all central authority, body of knowledge,
tradition, or commonly accepted system of nature,
accepts what he receives m place of those things.
He is usually as innocent of any saving scepticism,
even of the most elementary sort, where his subject-
ively-possessed machinery is concerned, as the most
secluded and dullest peasant abashed with metro r
politan novelties; only, unlike the peasant, he has
no saving slirew r dness even: and this is all the more
peculiar (and therefore not generally noticed, or if
recognized, not easily credited) because he is phy-
sically m the \ cry centre of things, and so, it
w r ould be supposed, ‘knowing,’ and predisposed to
doubt.

Listen attentively to auy conversation at a cafe
or a tea-table, or any place where students or artists
collect and exchange ideas or listen to one rising —
or equally a risen — wTiter or artist talking to another
— from this theie are very few people that you w T ill
have to except: it 1* astonishing how% m all the
heated dogmatical arguments, you will never find
them calling m question the vfcry basis upon w r hich
the v moveinent’ they are advocating rests. They
are never so 1 radical ’ as that. Not that the direo-

104

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

tion they are taking may not b% the right one, but
they have not the least consciousness, if so, why it
is right, or of the many alternatives open to them.
The authority of fashion is absolute in such cases:
whatever has by some means introduced itself
and gamed a wide crowd-acceptance foi sav two
years and a half, is, itself, unassailable. Its appli-
cation, oi*ly, presents alternatives. The world of
fashion for them is as solid and unquestionable as
that large stone against which Johnson hit his foot,
to confute the Bishop of Cloyne. For them the
tune-world has become ail absolute, as it ha^ lor the
philosopher m the background, feeding them with a
hollow assurance.

But this suggestionabihty, directed to other
objects, is shown everywhere by the crowd. The
confusion would be more intense than it is,
even, if everv small practitioner of art or letteis
started examining, m a dissatisfied and critical
spirit, everything at all, you might at this point
object. And, if that is the case, why attempt
to sow distrust of the very ground on winch
they stand, among a herd of happy and ignorant
technicians entranced, not with ‘mind,’ but with
‘subjectivity*? Was not the man-of-science of
thirty years ago, m undisturbed possession of all
his assumptions as regards the 'reality' he handled
so effectively, happier and brighter, and so perhaps
more useful than las more sceptical successor toda\ ?

This argument would carry more weight, if the
opinions to which it deferred were not so fanatically
held. It is very difficult to generalize like that:
sometimes it is a good thing to interfere with a som-

105

PALEFACE

nambulisl and of course sometimes not. You have
to use your judgment. The kind of screen that is
being built up between the reality and us, the ‘dark
mglil of the soul 5 into which each individual is
relapsing, the intellectual shoddiness of so much of
the thought responsible for the ifrtisCs reality, or
‘nature’ today, all these things seem to point to* the
desirability of a ncV and if necessary shattering
criticism of ‘modernity/ as it stands at present.
Having got so far, again, we must sustain pur revolu-
tionary impulse. It is an unenterprising thought
indeed that would accept all that the ‘Newtonian 5
civilization of science has thrust upon our unhappy
world, simply because it once had been different
from something else, and promised ‘progress/ though
no advantage so far lias been seen to ensue from its,
propagation for an v of us, except that the last vestiges
of a few superb civilizations are being stamped out,
and a million sheep’s-heads, m London, can sit
and listen to the distant bellowing of Mussolini; or
in situations so widely separated as Wigan and
Brighton, listen simultaneously to the bellowing of
Dame Clara Butt. It is too much to ask us to
accept these privileges as substitutes for the art of
Sung or the- philosophy of Greece. — It is as a result
of such considerations a* th'^e f hnf n now revolution
is already on loot, making its appearance first under
the aspect of a violtnt reaction, at last to biing a
steady and growing mass of criticism to bear upon
t hose innovations t hat Mr. Russell would term ‘ Ncw-
toman/ and question their rijfht to land upou the
shores of China, and do there what they are said to
be doing.

100

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

In the arts of formal expression tins new impulse
has already made its appearance But the deep
eclipse of the exlreme ignorance in w Inch most tech-
nical giants repose, makes the pointing of the new
day, m those places, very slow and uncertain. —
Really the average of our artists and writeis could
be regarded under the figure of nvmphs, who all are
ravished periodically by a paiftheon of unknown
gods, who appear to them lirst m oik form then in
another. These arc evidently d< lties w ho speak m
a scientific canting and abstract dialect, mainh, m
the moment of the supreme embrace, to these hoi
and boLhercd rapt, intelligences: and all the rather
hybrid creations that ensue lisp m the accents of
science as well. But is it one god, assuming many
different lorms, or is it a plurality of disconnected
celestial adventurers? That is a disputed point
but I incline to the belief that one god only is
responsible for these various escapades. That is
immaterial, however, for if it is not one, then
it is a colony of beings very much resembling one*
another.

So then, before discussing at all the pros and cons
of the ‘subjective’ fashion, it is necessary to recog-
nize that it is not to the concrete material of art that
w T e must go for our argument : that is riddled with
contradict orv assumptions. Most dogmatically ‘sub-
jective,’ tclling-froni-thc-mside, fashionable method
— ■whatever cist it may be and whether ‘well-found*
or not — is ultimately discovered to he bad philo-
sophy -that is to sav # it takes its oiders fiom second-
rate philosophic dogma. Can art that is a reflec-
tion of bad philosophy lie good art? I should say

107

PALEFACE

that you could make good ait out of almost any-
thing, whether good or bad from the standpoint
of right reason. But under these circumstances
there is, it follows, no objection to the source being
a rational one: for reason never did any harm to
art, even if it n< ver did it any gnfcd. And m other
respects wo are all highly interested in the success
of reason. ' *

But if, politically and socially, men are today
fated to a ‘subjective’ iole, and driven inside their
private, mental eaves, how can art be anything but
‘subjective,’ too? Is externality of any sort pos-
sible, for us* Are not v\e of necessity confined to a
mental world of the subconscious, m which wo natur-
ally sink back to a more primitive level; and hence
our ‘ primitivism, ’ too? Our lives cannot be de-
scribed in terms of action — externally that is — be-
cause we never truly uct. We have no common
world into which we project ourselves and recognize
what we see there as symbols of our fullest powers.
To those questions w r c now in due course would be
led: but what here 1 have been trying to show is
that lirst of all much more attention should be given
to the intellectual principles that are behind the
work ol art: that to sustain the pretensions of a
considerable innovation a work must be surer than
it usually is to-day of its formal parentage: that
nothing that is unsatisfactory m the result should
be passed over, but should be asked to account for
itself in the abstract terms that are behind its phe-
nomenal face. And I have suggested that many
subjective fashions, not plastically or formally very
satisfactory, would become completely discredited

108

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

if it were clearly explained upon what flimsy theories
they are in fact built : what bad philosophy, m short,
has almost everywhere been lesponsible for the bad
art.

My main object in Pair face has been to place m
the hands of the readers of imaginative literature,
and also of that very eonsideiable literal ure directed
to popularizing scientific and philosophic notions,
in language as clear and direct as possible, a sort of
key ; so that, with its aid, they ma\ be able to read
any work of art ptcscnlcd to them, and, resisting the
skilful blandishments of the lictiomst, reject this
plausible ‘life’ that often is not life, and understand
the ideologic or philosophical basis of these confus-
ing entertainments, where so many false ideasehang*
hands or change heads. As it is, the populanzer is
generally approached with the eyes firmly shut and
the mouth wide open. And the fiction in its \cr\
nature takes with it the authority of life — people
live it, as it were, as they read: so it is able to pass
off as Ira e almost anything. The often \ ery elabor-
ate philosophy expressed in this sensational form
very often not only misrepresents the empirical
reality, but misstates the truth.

I dignify this critical work with the title of .system*
because as literature stands today, it m reality
amounts to that. It is a system that will enable
any fairly intelligent man, once he opens his mind to
it, and seizes its mam principles, to read under an
entirely new light almost everything that is w r ntten
at the present time! Works of sociology, fiction,
history, philosophy, claiming to be on the one hand
conceived ‘objectively,’ according to the non-human

109

PALEFACE

methods of ideal Science, will be found on close in-
spection, 11 l most instances, to be All-too-Human,
and to be serving ends anything but scientific; and,
in another class, works of fiction claiming only to be
ingenuous works of art , will be found to be saturated
with political doctrine, or with attitudes of mind
imposed upon the Many in I he first place not by
pure pleasure experts, anxious only to ‘excite the
palate of their clients, but by political experts, de-
vising means of ruling people by working on their
senses and emotions.

In order of course to employ this system effec-
tively the reader must acquaint himself with many
things of a sort that do not come Ins way in the
ordinary course of life, lie must accustom himself
to regarding the means by which people arc ruled
today as very much more shrewd and elaborate
than is generally believed. He must entirely dis-
eard all the notions of the essential brute stupidity
of ‘powci’ that foimerly sometimes would have
applied in Europe, but certainly docs not at present.
If he finds it dillicult lo believe that he is ruled with
such a ‘ruthless’ cleverness, let him study for a
moment the highly ‘psychological’ methods by
which the Soviet rules its subjects. The Soviet do
their ruling m public, indeed: they explain and
explain, as did the german theoreticians of war:
there is no excuse, therefore, for any one to-day not
to be au courant with the way that he is likely to be
ruled. For lie can be sure that those open professors
of intrigue and heid-hypnotism are not the only
practitioners at work. Those who do not publish
daily accounts of how they reach their ends are at

110

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

least likely enough to be not less clever than those
who do.

In the following pages, then, it is my intention to
squeeze out all the essential meaning that there is in
the works I select, and to lea\e only the purely
literary or artist a* shells. Thai the Public, at the
present moment, should lurv e that essential matter
isolated for it, seems to me of very great importance.

Again, Mr. D. II, Lawrence, an english writer,
supplies th£ most important e\idenee in the re\iew
of the contemporary amcrican 1 consciousness/ But,
first of all, many american and english books aie
read almost equally on both sides of the Atlantic;
Sinclair Lewis is as much at home* here m England
as he is m America, and Mr. Law r rence is, I believe,
more widely read in the United States than m Eng-
land. Jlis name is invariably associated, in America,
with that of Sherwood Anderson. In the 1025
Amencami of Mr. Mencken a seorntul Midtile West
rcvicw r er refers to "Sherwood Lawrence/ as though
that composite name covered one person. So my
choice of Lawrence is explained. A further reason,
liowe\cr, is that his Morning* in Mexico reveals the
true aim of Sherwood Anderson and others of his
school better rh-m they ha\c, to my knowledge, so
far revealed themselves. This docs not mean that
Mr. Lawrence is better qualilied to express what
they all equally wibli to say. it happens, only, that
he has provided, in Ins book, an ideal material for
such an analysis as the present one.

There is one more j/oint. No criticism of America
as a whole is involved m my choosing, m this in-
stance, amcrican writers. America appears to me

111

PALEFACE #

much stronger ancl more admirable than those of
her writers who are most prominent m criticizing
her, and who for a longtime have been busy attempt-
ing to convert the essential American to something
that would be far less effective or desirable than
what at present lie still is. Also these writers are
committed to a policy of dm mg him into a position
that would be a much less env iable one than that he
occupies at present. This situation, with .the ‘Com-
ing of Age of America,' is changing, but it is unlikely
that menckemsm will be dropped, and if it is suc-
ceeded by a mere jingoism, its effects will remain,
not far beneath the surface.

It is my sense of the immense importance of
America to the Western World thal has impelled me
to scrutinize the inmd of contemporary America, as
displayed in some of her most influential writers.
My admiration for that very forcible* publicist, Mr.
Mencken, is not in contradiction with that. Mencken
was absolutely necessary to destroy the sclf-com-
placency that w'ell-being must bring. Also he has
been of enormous use, no doubt, m cutting off the
American from Ins self-indulgent, comfortable Past,
which is no longer actual today. That Past had
to be evacuated, the* anglo-saxon romanticism had
to be knocked out of Americans, or out of the Eng-
lish, by somebody. But it is no doubt true, as most
of the writers of the* reaction sec today, that such
a critic as Mencken, become an institution, should
he dissuaded from philosophizing, as it were, his
function.

112

Section I

ROMANTICISM AND COMPLEXES

§ 1. The Paleface 7 arrives the Dubious Present of an
''Inferiority Complex'

once proud, boastful* super-optimistic
I American of the United States lias become
M just a # White k man-m-the-slreef 5 with a pro-
nounced ‘inferiority complex.’ (I speak of the edu-
cated, or book-reading, American.) This lact, or
something like it, is patent to anybody who has
followed american thought of laic and had oppor-
tunities of inciting a good many Americans.

‘Never glad confident morning again* — for the
Ameiican of the United States. This, most Euro-
peans would here exclaim, is a change for the better.
— Wliat I propose to consider is the first cause or
causes of this transformation : and if it is, in reality,
a change for the better or not, as it affects America,
and as it affects us, m Hie other parts of the anglo-
saxon World. 1 will take the last point first.

The toning-down of the American is coeval, I sup-
pose, to give it a lairly exact convenient date, with
the activities of Mr. Mencken. 1 do not of corn sc
mean that this great transformation has been effected
by the editor of the American Mercury . But the
Americana of that writer is not calculated to inspire
a very acuti sense of self-respect in the american
bosom: and certainly attacks by Mr. Mencken upon
the traditional american conceit must have been
a powerful factor in bringing to the surface this

h 113

PALEFACE

gradual sensation of insecurity, the habit of self-
criticism, the dissatisfaction, to which I am alluding.
At the present moment this has grown, it would
seem, into what is actually an ‘inferiority complex.’
Or that is how the situation presents itself to me.

That the influence of Mr. Mencken, both in his
own writings and through his disciple Mr. Sinclair
Lewis, is of a popular, rather than an intellectual,
order is true. But we are concerned he^e with the
wider general discouragement and disiJhision of the
large book-reading mass of a prosperous modern
democracy : so that docs not affect our statement.

§ 2. White Hopes with a * Complex .’

There is among t lie younger writers a powerful
movement to amerieanize. The tendency is to
isolate America from Europe, and to produce an art
that shall be starkly american , for the Americans.
Tins, at the present time, finds expression in numer-
ous attempts in the literary field, at all events, to
depict essential phases of american life. The scene
usually chosen is that part of the United States that
is least affected by the more recent european im-
migration, and t here fore most american, in the old
sense

Mencken, 1 should say, means very little to the 1
people engaged in these latter activities. As a
publicist who ten, or five, years ago shook things up,
and who at all times has used lus influence to get a
good book read and so prepared the way for the
present more intelligent standards, they would
respect him. But as a political publicist lie would

lit

WHITE HOPES WITH A ‘COMPLEX’

not interest them. These are, as it were, the m-
tellectualist Wljitc Hopes. But they are White
Hopes who have passed through very dark barrages
of disillusioned thought; and the character of all
they do will bear traces, I think, of the rough hand-
ling thc\ have rccAved. They are White Hopes with
a complex ; or White Hopes composed of many com-
plexes. A?s such the more far-sighted literary fans
will, no doubt, think twice before putting their
money on them. This is a general statement, with-
out reference to any particular writers.

But more than that, m its search for the savage
and the primitive (resulting usually m rather arti-
ficial romantic constructions) this movement has a
philosophy which is scarcely that of the superb
natural physical vigour (innocent of expedients to
look strong, or to terrorize with exhibitions of vio-
lence, innocent also of an intensive and romantically
overheated stx-philosophy) of the early, purely curo-
pean, American. It has all over it the stigmata of
the neo-barbarism of the post-war gilded rabble, of
cafe, studio and counting-house. And the neo-
barbansm, so elaborate and sophisticated, is euro -
peart — not anything that can be called ‘American,’
m origin. It is of the Bitzcs and Carltons, of the
Cote d’Azur, of the luxurious vulgar philistine
bohemian ism of the european cities. Greenwich
Village today, without drink, is a dirty neglected
and empty slum. It is to prosperous bohemian
Europe you must look for the necessary mise cn
scene of this philosojfliy.

The pan-amencan movement, then, so excellent
as a direction, so far, except in a few cases, does not

115

PALEFACE

seem to have emancipated itself from the essential
curopean post-war decay. However much it buries
its head in the lawny sands, or super-rich and fat
Zolaesque red loam, of Arizona, Indiana, or Ohio,
its bottom (so to speak) — its tell-tale ecstatically
wriggling back-side, remains m the Cafe du Dome,
Montparnasse. And there is no true bridge between
the primitive America it is sought to resuscitate and
the Cafe du Dome. Glance into the Dome, any one
who questions this, and who happens to be m Pans.
You would think you were m a League of Nations
beset by a Zionist delegation, in a movie studio, m
Moscow, Broadway, or e\ en Zion itself , an ywhere but
in the mythical watertight America of the present
reaction, whatever that pm sang America may be
worth as an idea, and it seems to me a good one.

These suggestions I allow myself to make very
much under correction, however: and that anyway
is not the subject of mv essay, except indirectly.
It had to be alluded to to obtain an accurate per-
spective for the satire of Mencken — Lew is — Nathan.

§ 3 The opposite ' Supei tonlp Complex' thrust at the
same Him upon the U mailing Black.

Anything that affects the general mind, however,
m the w T ay that the attacks of Mencken have, does
also, without their knowing it, usually influence the
intellectuals. Such a man as Shcrwnod Anderson,
for instance (who, in Ins turn. w r as the originator of
the Amcnca-purr school), has been very much in-
fluenced by all those waves of opinion and sugges-
tion militating against the American believing in

116

THE ‘SUPERIORITY COMPLEX *

himself quite as firmly as formerly he did, and so
against this dre^m of a watertight America. What
I shall have subsequently to say with regard to the
books of Sherwood Anderson will, I think, make this
aspect of the matter very much clearer. Ambition
of that sort should certainly be made oi sterner stuff
than such^as Anderson is able to supply.

It would not be an exaggeration, m consequence,
to say tltfit Americana is making a present to the
White American of a formidable and full-fledged
‘inferiority complex,* that is, in so far as lie is the
w r idely-advcrtised, popular focus of all the dis-
illusioned thought of the post-war Western mind in
the United States.

Parallel with this, many writers of anicncan
nationality are busy providing the Negro, the
Mexican Indian, the Asiatic Settler, and indeed any-
body and evervbdv who is not a pur sang White, of
the original american-curopean stock, with a ‘superi-
ority complex.’ This in some eases is not an easy
matter. The American Negro, for instance, is
difficult to galvanize into pride of that sort, and is
apt to remain obstinately ‘inferior.’ Similarly, the
Kaffir requires a good deal ol hard pumping before
he swells into an aggressive race-class warrior ready
to scorn, bare his teeth and drive out, the White.
But still the good work goes on. The almost de-
mented energy and ingenuity on tin* part of the
pumpers is one of the most curious features of these
unique events. All this is of course the complement
of the other little present — that of the ‘inferiority
complex.’ A mechanical reversal is in progress, or
promises (if that is how you look at it) to occur.

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PALEFACE

§ 4. The Nature of Mr. Mencken's Responsibility.

At this pom l I had better make clear what I sup-
pose is Mr. Mencken’s position in this racial turning
of the tables, and that of those associated with him
in these revolutionary enterprises. Mr. Mencken,
let us sav, beeame^more and more impressed with
the futility of the machinery of Democracy, which
lie was able to observe in full and indecent operation
all round him, m the rich and exaggerated amencan
scene. It showed itself capable of idiocies of un-
equalled dimensions. The Poor White showed how
unable he was to defend himself against his inter-
fering rulers, of whatever shade of race or politics.
The Rich White was not a specially high type of
magnate, and lie manipulated his power with a sickly
unction of cordiality and righteousness that gave the
intelligent amencan patriot (such as Mr. Mencken)
a violent nausea, and every sort of misgiving for the
future of amencan life. This violent nausea trans-
lated itself into violent acts of criticism and persi-
flage. The more truly patriotic, the more disgusted
he would be.

I am not acquainted with Mr. Mencken; but that,
as a description of what has brought about Ins
famous critical attacks, would. I suppose, be gener-
ally accepted bv educated Americans. In any ease
he has convicted the American Democracy (mainly
out of its own mouth, in his Americana , which arc
extracts from newspapers, handbills, advertisements,
etc.) of surprising stupidities. Generalizing from
this body of evidence, ho concludes that such a form

118

MR. MENCKEN’S RESPONSIBILITY

of Democracy as has developed n* America is funda-
mentally bad and absurd.

Passing on fibm the general statement to my
private view of the matter, 1 do not see how any one
surveying the evidence Mr. Mencken has collected
could deny that a jadieal change of ->ome sort w r as to
be dosired for this great key-nation of the modern
world. By key -nation I mean tljat what the United
States arc today, the other most ‘advanced’ coun-
tries w r e know, from experience, will become to-
morrow. Ivarl Marx, in his dav. told people to
watch Industrial England, on the same principle.
So what America rt ally is is of as great importance
outside its frontiers as within them. But those
changes should perhaps be quite different from what
Mr. Mencken would bring about, if he were called in
to do the changing, as well as t he smashing. Radical
the changes no doubt should be. But there are so
many radical things that are the opposite, even, of
what is meant, currently, in America by ‘radical.’
Even the choice of this epithet for ntu direction only
of change, or revolution, reveals, surelv, a very much
narrowed view of life's possibilities.

§5. What is Change' <n ‘ Prognss ,’ and arc they
One or Many ?

On the other hand, once it has been decided to
transform anything or anybody, from its or lus pre-
sent state into some other condition, it is important
to know (especially if you are the person who is to be
transformed — it doeg not matter so much if you are
the transformer or reformer) just which of an infinite
number of possibilities is to be that ‘new'.’

119

PALEFACE

It is usually a Idck of imagination that makes people
so blindly , uncritically , susceptible to the ‘ new .’ That
fact should be self-evident, for in practice you have
it borne m upon you continually. It is because they
cannot imagine anything new thtmselves that they
are forced to accept the ‘new” officially provided for
them.

Take, for example, the novelties of fashion. Each
fresh novelty is accepted with a sort of fatalism as
the only possible novelty, as an inevitable creation,
as though it had dropped from the sky* instead of,
as is the case, been invented by a fat little man some-
where m Pans. (I here use — for different purposes
— a device of Mr. Lawrence’s: vide p. 18 G.) But
whatever happens at all is accepted by the majority
as the only thing that could possibly have happened.
In short, it has happened , they feel — the ‘new’ has
happened; not that some other person a little
shrewder and more active than themselves has done
it to them . And all the other things that might quite
well have ‘happened’ (it somebody else had been
there at the controlling centre) are not so much as
dreamed of.

In a thick fog of the actual the generality of people
dwell, deeply unconscious of all the multitudes of
possible things, of posable ‘changes ’ and ‘novelties,’
that do not issue from that fog into the spot -light of
actuality . The ‘up-to-date’ is thus the emanation
of some person, or some small inner ring of people.
But it is superstitious]} regarded as a fatal cosnucal
event. #

Bankok, New York City, Venice, the London of
the Regency, a medieval flemish town, are all appear-

120

WHAT IS* ‘CHANGE’ OR ‘PROGRESS’?

i

ances that differ very much from each other. They
all grew and lia^ve been tried to answer the require-
ments of some community, or of the leaders of a
community. But then* are man> factors m the
choice of form. Venice, in the midst of its lagoons,
was a marine fortress and a trading centre. Man-
hattan was a narrow rock, hence the skyscraper, it
is said, the skyscraper, elsewhere m America, is
often, we are told, a mere ornament, something a
rising town must have before it can become a full-
fledged ‘city.* The competitive skyscrapers in New r
York have similarly been the supreme advertise-
ment of Big Business: the rising big business, like
the rising big town, had to have a skyscraper. The
biggest business, it was assumed, would have the
biggest skyscraper.

The forms of cities do not grow' according to the
requirements of the greatest happiness of the great-
est number. They are usually the inventions of
minorities. The lull of masonry that goes up behind
the Battery at New r York is no doubt as much the
panache of mercantile conceit as it is a geographic
expedient, ft is one of l he avatars of the principle
of beauty, as much as the Venetian palaces. And,
m the distance, it is beautiful as well as impressive,
though differently from Venice. It is the difference
between the towered and terraced most recent
battleship of the k Rodney ’ type and the ^ate-barge
of the Doge.

The upshot of these remarks is as follows (though
I cannot go into it >*'ry carefully here) : First, the
geographic conditions, and indeed generally the
physical conditions, are not so important as is usu-

121

PALEFACE

ally supposed in deciding the character of ‘Change’
or of ‘ Progress 9 in the outward form of cities. There
is a kind of physical and climatic absolute, no doubt.
But the reality is, very often not that absolute, but
some sort of perversion. Hence it would he much
more m your power than you are accustomed to
think to change yourst If, just as it would be to change
your environment. In any of a great variety of ways,
provided vou had the imagination and the necessary
power. ‘ Change 9 is much less than is generally be-
lieved a single-gauge track. It is not a ^nglc-gauge
track at all. It is a multitudinous field of tracks
and lines, only one of which is used. That single
line — the one that is used, the one that "happens 9 —
we call ‘the new.’ As we proceed along it we call
that ‘progress. 9 It is my argument that there is an
absolute progress for any given community, but that
they are seldom able to investigate it, and seldom
attain it.

But all philosophy of history today — and Spongier
is a most perfect example of that — assumes an ab-
solute arrest somewhere or other. There is, on any
analogy, advance or ‘progress’ between the amoeba
and Socrates. (The amoeba’s opinion of Socrates, I
am assuming, wc should not regard as a contribu-
tion to values: else the amoeba becomes merely
another romantic outcast or superseded ‘race, ’about
which we grow touchy and diffident.) But now
there is nothing but a rising and falling of peoples
and cultures, on a dead level as regards value.
Change is always merely — change. It is quite evi-
dent that if this had been the philosophy of the
earliest men no arts, sciences, or anything but wild

122

WHAT IS 'CHANGE’ OR PROGRESS ?

animal life would have resulted. Yet what people
call ‘Progress* 1;oday is generally not an advance.
Those are the two main facts in this connection:
that is the centre of the confusion.

Under these circumstances the men of imagination
of this period of ‘change* and violent ‘progress* are
under no obligation to keep their eyes fixed on the
one track and direction that what is called ‘modern ’
and ‘progress* is taking. The fatalism of that fixed
stare, of that ‘what is, is,’ is perhaps natural enough,
but, in its turn, can only claim to be one attitude.
And, as to ‘progress’ or ‘change,’ there are millions
of extremely different forms available. You should,
for that one out of the many, of your persona] choice
(not yet existing, but quite available), wish: and
you should steadily oppose what you do not wish.
As for the many individuals of imagination and with
certain powers, they have to learn once more to
wish, or will, quite simply. That is the first step.
This all Europeans have for fifty veais been taught
not to do, until today to will is very difficult tor
them: they have had such a thorough grounding
in impotence. But certainly what no one m his
senses would wish or will is the America of Mr.
Mencken's Americana or the Europe of Herr Spong-
ier. And it avouU also show very little imagination
— less even than that displayed by those who shut
their eyes and open their mouths and swallow* the
hastily-manufactured 4 new * — to will yesterday back.
For it is yesterday that conceived in the first place
the America of Artoricana, and the Europe of
spenglerism.

Imagine such an artist as Leonardo da Vinci alive
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at this time and suddenly given carte blanche (in
some access of official enthusiasm} to change radi-
cally London, New York, or Berlin into the most
beautiful city he could imagine: or else suppose him
entrusted with the creation of Canberra or a new
Delhi. Ij you can imagine sucli an event as that,
then you will immediately see the bleakness and un-
reality of what is generally called ‘Progress,’ or the
false revolutionary fatalism we describe as ‘Change.’

§ G. From White Settler to Poor City-White .

I will now return to the ‘inferiority complex’ of
the White Man. That the seeds of that reversal of
feeling do not date from the end of the War, but
from long before it, is obvious. If w r e consider for
a moment the circumstances in which the White
Race has found itself for a long time now, and the
temper of many of its literary spokesmen, poets and
statesmen, we shall see that clearly.

The colonization of the Ncw r World, Australia,
and of large areas in Asia and Africa, by the Euro-
pean, opened a new epoch of World-history, of a
different character from any preceding it. It w r as
the domestication, or imperialization, of the entire
globe, with the White as overlord.

For the most part the White peoples who o\erran
the world, and, with the help of their rapidly de-
veloping Science, enslaved the greater part of it,
wiping out entire races and cultures, were possessed
of a meagre cultural outfit, ‘And only a borrowed
religion. It is a commonplace that Cortez and
Pizarro were less ‘civilized/ on the whole, than the

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FROM WHITE SETTLER TO POOR CITY-WHITE

i

Aztecs, Mayans or Incas they subdued. Tlie Anglo-
Saxons, who were responsible for the major part of
this curopean expansion and colonization (although
not the first in the field) possessed less cultural equip-
ment, and a more naive and crude variety of religion
(their well-thumbe8 Genevan Bible m their breast-
pocket), thqn the other White partners of this World-
conquest.

As far as, l he Anglo-Saxon is concerned, there was
never any unnecessary diffidence or lack of self-
persuasion about Ins conquest. Whether he wiped
out the ‘Redskin ’ of America to make room for him-
self, captured and enslaved the Negro and put him
on his plantations, or subjugated the highly civilized
Hindu, he can seldom liavc suffered from anything
in the 1 shape of an 'inferiority complex.’ Quite the
reverse, of course. He was quite sure that he was
in eveiy way a better man than the people he over-
ran. He was more ‘enilized,’ more ‘moral,’ he w r as
a ‘gentleman,’ he was ‘White,’ lit was cleaner (that
came next to his ‘godliness’), he was faultlessly
brave: lie was, in short, of a different and better
clay. Some of Jus enemies were brave, some ‘gentle-
men * (like the Turk)- but none possessed all those
qualities that were Ins. If to succeed is wliat you
want, and not to fail, that is l he only spirit m wdiieli
to effect a conquest.

The great opportunities that offered themselves
to the early colonist and trader reinforced this
opinion. He was repaid for his colonizing enter-
prise by the possession of land — even if his family
at home had never possessed an acre — and, if not
too stupid, could easily grow nch. The hard and

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active life made a better man of him, too, than many
of his stock that remained in tlieir country of origin.
With his scientific weapons he was like a god amongst
1 he ‘ heathen 5 and the ‘ poor Indian ’ (who worshipped
stones, ‘heard god in Hie wind,’ and was ‘untutored ’
in White science). So there were substantial
grounds for a sensation of superiority. A century
ago the White was in full possession of a ‘superiority
complex,’ in consequence, and until the M r ar (when
all the Whites, m one glorious aufo-da-fe , for four
years did their best to kill and ruin each other) he
retained it.

From those early days of White conquest down to
the days of the ‘ Poor White ’ (the subject of Sher-
wood Anderson’s books), and to the present educated
city- White, with Ins gradually crystallizing ‘inferior-
ity complex’ — the subject ot this essay — is a road
of disillusionment and decline, to some extent.
White Civilization, especially in America, built it-
self up with great rapidity into a towering baby-
lonian monument to Science; but the old freedom
and sense of pow cr shared b> e\ cry White Man in
the early dins naturally was crushed, or over-
powered, at least, by the great technical achieve-
ments of the same instruments (hat had secured luni
his new empire. So, if you compare that empire
with the roman, for instance, it has been in Ins hands
a remarkably short time. Today the average White
Man experiences great difficulty m realizing how the
engine has been turned against himself, and how his
‘conquest’ is already a thing 6f the past.

This slowness to understand, this indolent, in-
stinctive, self-protective living in the past , or else

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FROM WHITE 'SETTLER TO POOR CITY-WHTTK

just sheer ignorance of the World-situation today,
accounts for many things: certainly it would ac-
count for an attitude of astonishment or incredulity
that such a plain statement as the present one must
expect to encounter. For, m a sense, it is what we
all know to be th? situation : and yet, when stated
m so main words, and associated with a few of the
things thal obviously must ensue from it, if may at
first, to many readers, seem fantastic.

Better than a great deal of argument — for the
purpose of convincing people that I am not talking
quite in the air — will be to quote, at adequate length,
passages from a variety of sources which will, I
think, plainly show the reality of this deep and
powerful current of doubt and confusion that has
overtaken the White Man. And I will begin with
the most obvious, as far as America is concerned,
namely, the destructive work of Mr. Mencken.

§ 7. 'Ameiicana 9 of Mcncfov,

The Americana of Mr. Mencken are so well known
that there would be no object m quoting them at
any length. It must be admitted, in general criti-
cism of these documc nts, that another sort of patriot
than tin.-, earnest, clever, germanic editor could
easily throw doubt on their value and significance.
Perhaps the most useful w r ay of considering them
w'ould be to approach them from the standpoint of
this hypothetic patriot, of another persuasion.
Their very qualities,' •even, will be best brought out
by this method. I w r ill proceed to do this. But by
adopting this procedure 1 wish to make it clear that

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i

I would not minimize the great debt of America to
Mr. Mencken, or 1o Sinclair Lewis, for holding up
their hostile mirrors.

In the first place, then, it could be said that the
Americana consist mostly of ridicule of religious
emotionality. But all religion, looked at with the
uninterested eye of the outsider, or from the exclu-
sively secular or scientific standpoint, lends itself to
ridicule. For instance, to the Anglo-Saxpn of two
centuries ago, the religious ‘superstitions’ of every
race whatoer, except the Anglo-Saxon', provided
much amusement. A ‘heathen Chinee" at his de-
votions, ‘Fuzzy-wuzzy ’ at his, the ‘Indian natrve/
or the Coolie, at his (cf. Mother India); the Jew
muttering awaj m Ins dingy synagogue; even ‘the
Dago’ at his, was a joke at which the Anglo-Saxon
laughed heartily. And, of course. Ins laughter in-
creased Ins self-esteem.

From tins point of v lew , Mr. Mencken’s Americana
is merely the Anglo-Saxon at his devotions being
laughed at, m his turn. It is the turn of the Anglo-
Saxon, inert I y. It is a mistake to regard the Ameri-
cana as exclusively referring to the more savage
states of America. The evangelism of Dakota is no
funnier than the same sort of thing m Wales or
Scotland. The London Salvationist, at the corner
of any street, would provide Mr. Mencken w T ith per-
fect A me? ieana jokes. Americana is an at tack upon
the Anglo-Saxon Protestant at Ins devotions, more
than anything else, as Mother India is an attack
upon the religious habits of tile Indian. (But Mr.
Mencken is a different sort of critic to Miss Mayo.)

Therefore, all that comes under the head of ridi -

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‘AMERICANA’ OF MENCKEN

«

cule of religion could be matched anywhere m the
world. Horatio Bottomley, in the days of Ins most
flond publicity, was as grotesque as any ‘moron’ m
a ‘backward’ southern State. Abandoning the
beautiful forms and ancient etiquette of devoutness,
the Protestant everywhere inevitably grew vulgar
in the ’form t his worship took. This was mia\ oid-
able. As time went on lie grew v?orse, more vulgar
instead of Jgss. In America he has perhaps gone
furthest, but not so very much ahead as all that.
The richest, and so the most aggressive and cocksure
Protestant will be the most ridiculous. And pos-
sibly the spirit of american Advertisement, taking
a hand in the Allciutah business, has made a slightly
more fantastic-looking thing of it than can be found
elsewhere. That i« the utmost that can be claimed
for the criticism of Americano.

That is .ill there is to that, and it is more than half
of the matter of Mr. Mencken's book, and the richest
and funniest portion.

Here is an example from the Louisiana cuttings
(p. 98, Americana, 1 925) of llow Christianity is being
spread among the girl-students of Tulana Unncrsitv
etc.’ :

‘ What per cent, of your students read the Bible
daily ? Y ou ? IIow many minutes a day do you
pray? Ever pray thirty minutes by watch?
Honest!

‘In how many rooms on your campus is there a
deck of spot cards ? A Bible ?

‘How about smoking, cursing, drinking?

‘What per cent, of your students go to Sunday-
school? Preaching? Once a day? Twice?
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i

PALEFACE

Prayer-meetings at a Church ? Contribute to the
Church? Belong to the Church school? Study
the Sunday-school lesson?’

That is a fair specimen of the more normal evi-
dence provided by Mr. Mencken'. It is not particu-
larly funny. It is depressing reading: but* surely
it could be matched anywhere in the Christian world.
The anxious, insistent, ‘humorous’ note has a uni-
versally familiar ring.

Really these collections called Americana throw
a more interesting light upon the people who are
amused and delighted (apparently) by them, than
they do upon the people whom ostensibly they are
supposed to hold up to ridicule. As you read them
you are inclined rather to glance aside and survey
your fellow-readers, and to wonder what variety of
snobbery, or superiority complex, has brought to-
gether this large ‘reading-public.’

The critic of t hese collections, again, would have
occasion often to object that things quoted as
solemn statements were evidently intended to be
jokes. They are not usually very good jokes. They
look, m facl , as though they had been specially con-
cocted to catch Mencken's eye. Here is one from
Massachusetts (p. 121):

‘Effects of Woman Suffrage as disclosed by the
Lynn Telegram-News , a great intellectual and
moral organ.’

[These are Mencken's heading^, describing the nature
of the cutting.]

‘Many of the village belles ... of Danvers, . . .

ISO

‘AMERICANA’ OF MENCKEN

*

have started wearing dog-collars. Dog-collars
are not only being worn by schoolgirls, but are

even worn by teachers The girls do not always

buy their dog-collars. That fact was brought to
light when many complaints were heard from dog
owners to the effhet that dogs have mysteriously
lost iheir^ieck pieces.’

This looks like a clumsy joke of the ‘sly’ order,
written by some tired newspaper-man m the silly
season.

Here is a ‘dispatch ’ from Orono, Maine, appearing
‘in recent public prints’:

‘If Ilenry James, soeiety novelist and short
story writer of the late Nineteenth Century, were
to reappear today, one-fifth of the University
of Maine freshmen class would expect him to be
arrayed as a two-gun bandit, according to the
results of a questionnaire made known to-dav.
Martin Luther was the son of Moses; the author
of Vanity Fair wa « William Shakespeare; Dis-
raeli was a poet ; and Moses was a Roman ruler,
according to some of the other answers submitted
in reply to questions."

Every civilized country lias and has always had
its examination jokes — What the Eton boy answered
when asked what he knew of the Orinoco or (began, as
an instance of the sort of thing. (Oregon, or for
that matter Orono, he would probably describe as a
cheese, or a game of eafrds.) In all this type of story
two reflections are apt to remain in the mind of the
person to whom it is told : first, he feels that the

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i

story has probably been made up by somebody to
make him laugh; which he doesn't mind if he has
got his laugh satisfactorily. Or else, if the story
is authentic, he usually has the impression that th(
dunce who is its hero was not quite such a dunce as
he looked ; and even may have been a much shrewder
fellow than his examine! s.

i

The above cutting from ‘public prints’ in Maine
is no exception to this rule. That flfoscs was a
roman ruler was evidently the freshman’s idea of a
joke. That Mart m Luther was t he son 6f this roman
ruler was a subtle extension of the joke — both, to
me, ha\c a theological and learned look. Or per-
haps the freshman was a reader of Americana* and
wished to make a parade of lus ignorance of the
sacred text, seeing that so many ‘morons’ showed
a lamentable familiarity with it. In any case, if
the ‘freshman’ of Orono could be coimcted of a
benighted ignorance, as a magnificent compensation
tlu newspaper men of all the ‘public prints ’ of Orono
shine brightly as a well-informed body of men, con-
versant with the work of Henry James, thoroughly
acquainted with the Scriptures, and with some know-
ledge of the Reformation. So, as it is America m
general we are having held up to us, not any par-
ticular class, Orono, M,une, does not come nff so
badly.

Then a great number of the extracts have reference
to the absurdity of Prohibition. Prohibition is, of
course, a joke played upon the American People of
a very perfect kind. That«such a joke could be
played does not say much for their collective poli-
tical sagacity, it could be argued. But can any

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‘AMERICANA’ OF MENCKEN

European today assert that this is not a joke that
may equally be ptoyed, successfully, upon his people
at any moment now ?

The War provides some Americana fun, us well.
Hut the War is another joke, like Prohibition, that
has been played on*all of us without exception. So,
people who Ijve in glass houses , etc.

I will go on, for a moment, with these possible
criticisms of Mr. Mencken’s excellent satire:

‘Progress of Methodist Kvlfnr in the home of
the Creoles, as reported by a press dispatch
from New r Orleans.’

‘The old Absinthe House, one of the landmarks
m the old French quarter of New Orleans, where,
according to repute, Jean Lafitte planned his pir-
atical forays and boasted of what he and Napoleon
Bonaparte would do to Messieurs les Anglais, was
badly damaged last night. Prohibition agents
did it all for one quarter of an ounce of absinthe,
according to their oflicial report, tiled today. In
the old courtyard, a door, priceless relic of the old
hotel, was smashed. The book m which artists,
statesmen, writers and lesser or greater notables
had signed their autographs was east carelessly
upon the wreckage-littered jfloor. Because a few
drops of absinthe was found m the place, charges
of possession and sale of intoxicants w r cre placed
against the proprietor.’

This shows how the idiotic drink-w'ar resulting
from the Volstead Aut leads to vandalism: ‘price-
less relics’ and an old and historical building suffer.
This is Rheims Cathedral, damaged by german shell-

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i

fire, over again in a small way — that is the idea.
Only here it is not the Germans* but their former
enemies doing the same thing.

And here we have to note another feature of the
Americana : namely, that many of them are designed
to turn the tables upon the * Allied’ war-propa-
gandist. Mr. Mencken, being of german 'origin,
naturally resented that propaganda, and, in the heat
and folly of the moment, its frequent % unfairness.
But such material for a turning-of-the-tables of this
sort eould be found in any community. * It is merely
the tale of general human stupidity. And, of
course, the Germans did destroy an irreplaceable
work of art, and would have destroyed others had
they been able. — This undercurrent of nationalist
passion in Mr. Mencken, it could be claimed, weakens
his criticism.

When he says that there have been rumours of the
suppression of his paper, he refers to the american
police as Polizei . lie refers to the ‘goose-stepping’
habits of the american masses. So he rubs it in. If
lie had conveyed that Americans were mesmerized
and drilled without this familiar war-time tag of
Polizei , the effect would have been stronger. But
Mr. Mencken is, I should say, a very honest man,
and he lias strong feelings

Kentucky should be a good state for Mr. Mencken.
If you refer to Americana , 1025, you can fairly take
that as an example. But it is surprising how little
he gets out of it to his purpose. Of course, there is
the usual extravagant Salvation Army language
quoted. But that vernacular of provincial religion
is rather engaging than otherwise, and an example

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‘AMERICANA’ OF MENCKEN

of extreme high-spirits on the part of very simple
folk indeed — whpse principal offence scetns to be
that they do not want their kind to intermarry with
Negroes, and that they believe m the liebrew saered
books so deeply that they object to people teaching
that men are descended from monkeys, instead of
having been created along with monkeys and all
other things, all m one simultaneous Fiat. (The
ultra-sophisticated beliefs of Mr. D. II. Lawrence,
which I shall be examining shortly, lie somewhere
between tin* two — between Mencken and the Ken-
tuckian 'moron’ — as Berman would call him, after
Mencken.)

The first of these two arch -offences I regard as
a substantial virtue; the bitter contempt directed
upon the second by many people I do not share: so
all this part of Menckcmana I find dull or pointless.

Here is the example from Ktni lieKy of high-spirits,
combined with imperfect education:

‘Solomon, a Six-Cylinder Sport. Could you
handle as many wives and concubines as this ‘'Old
Bird”? Itcv. B. Cl. Hodge will preach on this
subject Sunday night at Settle Memorial.’

The simple mind, m ruminating on the behaviour
of one of the most ce lebrated personages m its Scrip-
tures, is struck by the vigorous picture of thispretcr-
naturally wise old Jew r presented to it. What more
natural? The Ilev. B. CL Hodge announces that
he will discourse on that theme to his rough high-
spirited flock. Whi*t could be more appropriate?
I can see nothing worth getting excited about there.
And it is only very mildly funny.

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On the next page, again (p. 90), the amusements
of Dean Paul Anderson are pilloriejl. Those amuse-
ments appear to be, as a matter of fact, neither more
nor less intellectual than — Lady Dean Paul's, I was
going to say, though I only know what hers are from
reading I he accounts in the society-page of the
London papers: 1 will say, instead, those of any
t> pical member otthe intellectual cream of London
Society. Mr. Mencken is, I daresay, a shade snob-
bish about lus kentuckian ‘moron/ The ignorance
of t hat moron is t he burden of his song. * But is that
obvious butt as a fact so very much more ridiculous
(though entirely innocent of cultural pretensions)
than the masses at Saratoga Springs, the Lido, Deau-
mIIc, and so on? The Society Columns, to which I
alluded above, are certainly not particularly funny.
Their smooth and nerveless adulation (except wliert*
any real artist , or real person at all, comes to be men-
tioned) makes dull reading. The imdde-class audi-
ence of Mr. Mencken would not get much of a chuckle
out of them ; blit they would be suitably impressed.
Are ‘Society 5 morons, however, fundamentally less
ridiculous, mean or irritating than diwout and
clamorous rustics? I don’t believe that they are:
they seem to me far more so, and terribly smug, into
the bargain. Apart from my intention here to give
a kind of typical adverse statement where these col-
lections arc concerned, I am not an ideal Mencken
reader at all, I confess, m spite of my admiration for
their spirited compiler.

Another Kentucky cutting is* about a Missionary
Training School : ‘ . . . m future no student wear-
ing bobbed hair will be admitted, 5 etc. But bobbed

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‘AMERICANA’ OF MENCKEN

hair suits some women’s heads and not others.
Therefore a tyrannical orthodoxy on one side results
in as much injustice to Nature, and the skulls and
hair provided by Nature, though no more, as that of
‘goose-stepping ’ fashion on the other. So this agam
is a disappointing cutting.

The moje I go into it, and proceed to give effect to
my idea of finding an answer to "'Mencken, the more
I find I should agree with the other sort of aincncan
patriot rat hoi than with Mr. Mencken. But still
there remains Mr. Mencken’s great service in stirring
the pot round, and that with honesty, it seems, and
not with malice. Also, in straining every nerve to
find fault — if only in that — lie has done good. For
he has demonstrated the limits of average imbecility,
as well as its extent: lie has done the worst that can
be done, and it actually is not so impressive as all
that. He has even revealed many unsuspected
virtues m the ‘moron of the Backward States.’
Other services rendered by his method I will refer
to Jater m this essay.

§ 8. ‘ Complexes ’ as between Whites.

As regards other Whites, many Whiles, at one tunc
and another, have -.offered from an ‘inferiority com-
plex,’ but never as regards people not Whites. The
enghsh farm-labourer or mechanic, in the past, has
suffered from an ‘inferiority complex’ where a Dun-
dreary Swell was concerned: but Buddha would be
for him a ‘nigger.’ {This was absurd. But it was
the requisite for White world-success.

Americans at the time of Edgar Allan Poe, or

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4 PALEFACE

those of the period of The Virginians, certainly ex-
perienced no ‘inferiority complex’ where their euro-
pean cousins were concerned. They were the cadets
and equals of one great family. But since that time,
for various reasons, the educated American lias felt
‘inferiority’; or, not to use the language of Freud,
he has felt provincial, and been rather terrorised by
the thought of the*' cultured’ backgrounds of polite
european life. This had less to do with fhe culture
question, I believe, than with the great sway, m the
european nund, of the aristocratic idea. * As all the
great european families, who have not been exter-
minated by war or revolution, have intermarried
with their bankers and brokers, the aristocratic idea
has lost its sway entirely: and, that factor elimi-
nated, the other, the cultural one, by itself, could
scarcely offer much opposition. So the American
today not only has no reason to be, but m fact is
not at all, impressed with the European as such:
although, if he had his choice, he might prefer to live
m Europe rather than America. And here is a para-
dox (the paradox involved in the subject-matter of
this t ssay) : for in most eases he would rather, prob-
ably (‘America ’-movements aside), live in Europe:
he probably at no former time would have been so
ready as today to say good-bye to America- and
yet he has ceased to believe m Europe or m Euro-
peans, or to have any illusions about them. There
is no spreadeagleism at all discoverable to the Euro-
pean descending on the eastern shore of the United
States today, nor in amencan books does it play
any part. ‘The American’ of the bntish news-
papers is, indeed, a complete myth — an Uncle Sam

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THE AMERICAN |BA BY

cartoon of veryhong ago. Yet it is not the thought
of Europe that instinctively humbles him. It is the
thought of himself.

In spite of all this, the new ‘inferiority complex’
of the American, which has nothing to do with
Europe at all, i* partly composed of the material
of europcgn criticism of America reaching him in-
directly. And to that subject ? now will turn.

§ 9. The American Baby .

It is a widely-held notion in Europe that the
American is a kind of baby-man : that the American
is not adult, that lie remains all Ins life a child. And
that is of course one of the things that Mr. Mencken’s
criticism suggests, Mr. Sherwood Anderson says,
‘Most amcrican men never pass the age of seven-
teen " This would equally well describe most men
everywhere: but when the typical educated Euro-
pean thinks of the inhabitant of the United States
he thinks of something childish, super-young, un-
developed, excitable and helpless. He thinks of
him (and of the American Woman equally) as a
creature of ‘crazes’ and impulses, who when not
‘crazy about’ this is “crazy about’ that; a half-
cooked, foolishly-eager, snob of every idea that can
get itself advertised and descrif e itself as novel and
‘stimulating’ (the last invariably-used adjective
suggesting some radical impotence in the public):
but generally and to sum up all the rest, as sub-
stantially prone tc# an ever-deepenmg juvenility,
ever more of which mi rely receptive quality is willed
for itself by this spoilt-child of fortune — for that is

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precisely what it wishes to be, an irresponsible child,
sheltered from the rough embarrassments, fatigues
and battles of the surrounding universe. It would
indeed not at all surprise this type of European if
the entire American Nation, pressing on back into
the rosy lands of self-deceiving childhood and breath-
less illusion, vanished, one lin< day, into the womb
out of which it eanfe.

That this cannot, in reality, describe, the great
mass of the population of America I need not say,
nor is that my view, or that of the bet tei -informed
European. Bui it is still a widely-held opinion.
So, if european opinion ever reached and touched
America, it would not lessen the ‘inferiority com-
plex’ being manufactured for it on the home-soil.
So to the older White countries America cannot look
for help in the analysis of its ‘complex ’ For them
America is a baby, the baby of Europe and — after a
hundred and fifty years — a peculiarly infantile one,
making on all-fours for the womb of its origin.

§ 10. Was Wait Whitman the Father of the American

Baby?

Although I know, as I have said, that the whole
of America is not a gigantic baby, tied to the apron-
strings of some ‘cosmic ' Mama, nevertheless it really
does seem that the aniencan mind is today more in-
fantile than it. was in the days of Edgar Allan Poe,
for instance. The Virginians and New Englanders
of that day it would have entered nobody s head
to accuse, even, of this peculiar infantilism. The
amencan mind was at that time, no doubt, much

14.0

THE FATHER OF THE AFRICAN BABY

abused by the criemies or rivals of the master-state
of the New World, but that state was governed and
represented by adult Europeans at a few removes
tempered in the sternest roman traditions of english
enterprise. So it does seem that America, as it has
grown older, has grown younger and younger, m the
sense* that, there is a patch or streak in the mind of
the amorican aggregate that give*, some colour to the
more recent european myth of the American Baby.

If we take this patch, or this tendency, and if we
isolate it, find so form an entire Baby, and proceed
to call that ‘America ’ (winch is what has happened,
I believe, in the ease of the european belief I am here
discussing), then who was responsible for that par-
ticular eluld ? For, as it did not exist a century ago,
it must have made its appearance in the interim.

Walt Whi Linar was, 1 feel sure, the father of the
American Baby, looked at m that light. Walt
showed all those enthusiastic expansive habits that
w’e associate with the Baby, lie rolled about naked
in the Atlantic surf, uttering ‘ barbaric yawps,’ as he
called them, m an ecstasy of primitive exhibitionism.
He was prone to ‘ cosmic ’ raptures. A freudian
analyst specializing in inversion or perversion would
have said, observing his behaviour over a suitable
period, that he was certainly the victim of a psy-
chical ‘fixation,’ which incessantly referred him back
to the periods of earliest childhood. He was a great
big heavy old youngster, of a perfect freudian type,
with the worst kind of ‘enthusiasm 5 in the grcck
sense of that word.* He was also, it should be re-
membered, the epic ancestor of the now’ celebrated
american ‘fairy.’

141

JPALEFACE

Walt Whitman, as the father (if the American
Baby, is a hint, only, to the americari 1 analyst of these
questions, and I of course may be wrong in stressing
that particular figure. But he does seem to fit so
wonderfully the requirements of the case: so I at
all events recommend him m tliatT capacity.

§ 11. The Healthy Attitude of the American to his
‘ Babylon

When I visited New York I found the pictorial
effects exceedingly curious and beautiful. This was
not a view in any way shared by the more intelligent
New Yorkers, I was glad and surprised to find.
They, who lived m the place, and understood the
motives of the builders and their masters, regarded
it as so much vulgar and childish display. The
‘Down -town 5 towers and cathedrals produced noth-
ing but a contemptuous and rather bitter mirth m
them. For me it w as purely the satisfactions of the
eye that made me like it. In every other w T ay I w r as
m agreement with them. For towards everything,
and all the people, that are behind the creation of
these ‘swinging gardens of Bab} Ion,’ I feel about as
they do.

Strange as it was to find this disillusioned and hos-
tile attitude on the part of the intelligent educated
men, it was far stranger to find it as wtII amongst
the workmen and average of t he community. Far
from boasting of their eit v, they seemed to take very
little interest m it, except occasionally to remark
that they did not like New York, and that one of
these days — I should see — it ‘would all blow up,’

112

SHERWOOD ANDERSON

since Nature dnl not approve of such structures as
were to be found there, and Nature would have the
last word !

These traces of Nature-worship arc reminiscent of
Whitman, it is true. It was the Rood side of Whit-
man — the very aflcicnt gospel that was the matrix
of his* own* but which he was not able to incarnate,
and only succeeded in making exaggerated and
ridiculous. *

§ 12. Sherwood Anderson .

I now come to the part of this brief preliminary
essay where I propose to show, by means of citations
from books, the reality of my argument. And Sher-
wood Anderson comes first in order of importance as
a witness, though actually the first writer I shall use
is english, and not amcncan. It may be as well to
point out at once that I am m no way attempting
here any estimate of the value of the writings I use
as evidence. I take the good and bad writer (as
I sec it) mdiffcrentlv. Provided, for good or bad
reasons, or for very mixed reasons, he exerts, or
recently has exerted, influence, that is enough for
my purpose.

Of all the children of Walt Whitman, Sherwood
Anderson is perhaps the most celebrated : and he has
exercised a very great influence upon all the young
school of american fiction, and indeed throughout
the intelligent life of America. So the feelings and
tendencies to which Ins work testifies are authentic
evidence in such an examination as this.

Now, although, as I have said, I am certainly
offering no opinion upon the value as writers of the

143

PALEFACE

people I have chosen to quote, there^are certain judg-
ments or classifications that it is impossible not to
make in taking up the evidence. It will be better,
m a few words, to make clear at the start what these
must be.

§ 13. The Essentia 1 Romanticism of the Return to the
‘ Savage 9 and the * Primitive

If there is one tiling more than another that is
quite certain about Sherwood Anderson? and what
almost may be called his ‘ school, ’ it is that they are
extreme romantics. At least one member of this
‘school,’ or person influenced by Anderson and writ-
ing on somewhat the same lines (Hemingway), has
turned upon his inspirer, and very ably caricatured
him, choosing for his satire exactly this quality
in Anderson — namely, his incurable romanticism.
Hemingway himself appears to me much drier and
less sentimental than Anderson, and so hn> action
may bo the result of a genuine impatience with the
absurdities of Dark Laughter . Hut how far this
essential romanticism can be weeded out of the
racincss-of-lhe-soil of american creative writing, I do
not know: I am not familiar enough with all the
circumstances to be able to offer an opinion about
that. Bullfighters and Boxers occupy the centre of
the stage in Hemingway’s books; if Action is your
god, if you arc a romantic and regard strong roman-
tic tendencies as a highly desirable thing m an artist,
then you will be glad to meet these gladiators so
constantly at the heart of the business; but if you
are not so romantically inclined you will get tired

144

THE ‘SAVAGE’ AND THE ^PRIMITIVE’

of such a physical infatuation, and tlic insatiable
taste for violence- -for sangre y arena, for blood and
sand, blood and iron, and all the other accompani-
ments of the profuse discharge of human blood. It
is possible to feel that the blood-stream, perforations
through which it pours out, things l hat make it beat
and throb hytly, and so on, are not the onl> subjects
of interest. •

You may wen go further than that, and fc el that
our literature today is becoming a sort of mortuary
games; moft and more a roman brutality is invad-
ing our books; so that the communistic fever into
which everyone was plunged during the War, especi-
ally those who took part m it —the gladiators w atehed
by the politicians and financiers, for whom the War
was a sort of immense Circus— is perpetuated in
print. Tins fascist or murincttinn (futurist) appe-
tite for Violence — and possibly m the case of Hem-
ingway this particular romanticism has been en-
couraged m him by that perfect 4 American liaby ’ of
the Whitman tradition, Ezra Pound— is perhaps the
most characteristic note of all to be found in these
writers. Theirs are ‘American dreams — AngJo-
saxon dreams,’ in the words of one of the principal
dreamers.

Torrents oj Spring (Ernest Hemingway) may be,
however, a sign, on the part of the strongest and
latest of this school, of a turning of the tide. For
if you repudiate one romanticism you are apt to re-
pudiate others and with luck the whole gaudy pack
may come tumbling down.

Corrected m some, especially those following
Anderson who have benefited no doubt by contacts

K 145

PALEFACE

which have militated against too/fenaivc a romantic
afflatus, with Sherwood Andersomthc pure romance
of whitmanesque tradition remains. At a first
reading he looks a little like a Strindberg softened
in the prosperous optimistic air of America, and
brought up in the shadow of Whitman.

Two sisters of Strindberg lid \c written a biography
of the great swl-dish writer ( Strindberg's Systrar
Beratta, reviewed in the Observer , August 21st, 1927,
from which T quote). His sisters, apparently, take
Strindberg at lus own persistently storn.v, romantic
valuation. ‘In his sistcis' opinion, he teas possessed
by a dark demon ' How that description seems to
fit what many romantic persons today would like* to
be the figure under which the world should know
them! We are in the presence of a school of ‘dark
demons,’ m short, with Bernard Shaw behind them
demoniacally grinning, but m a lighter and more
mischievous mood; and behind him, all the mephis-
tophelian ‘darkness’ of Nietzsche. Behind that
comes the debonair ‘darkness* of Lord Byron.

§14. Possessed In/ 'a Da) k Demon.'

But we have in England a much more complete
and much more up-to-date Anderson, who is very
widely read in America : that is Mr. D. II. Lawrence.
No one, I suppose, will be found to deny Mr. Law-
rence the title of ‘romantic’; and I think it is quite
evident that he is possessed by a very ‘dark demon’
indeed, that takes him to the darkest and most
mysterious corners of the earth in search of other
‘demons' of sinulat complexion. He succeeds m

116

POSSESSED BY ‘A DAIvK DEMON’

rooting out quit 1 a fair number of devils still, and
their ‘ mysterious,’ mechanical worshippers. Litera-
ture is indebted to the activities of this ‘demon’ of
his for many excellent pages; though it is certainly
our business to show (on our way to the Melting-pot,
in shoft all the wav to the final mix-up), we who are
possessed by the White demon, the dam on of the
White Man, the authentic one, l*moan, that that is
as compelling as the ‘dark* for the purposes of art,
without the perils for our race (in its inarch towards
the Melt inkpot) of the ‘dark’ familiars. Hut that
is not m any way what we are talking about here,
for the same could be said of Anderson, who does
not always writ*, badly, as of Lawrence.

Mr. I). II. Lawrence’s book. Mornings in Mexico,
had just appeared when I was in New York this
summer (1!>27). ILs ‘dark demon’ may be ob-
served m it working al high pressure on the material
provided by Mexieo: and I am taking this hook,
along with those of Anderson, to r« \cal what I am
driving at in this review' of the contemporary mind.

In general outline m\ argument will be this: —
Against this Dark Demon I oppose everywhere (for
the sake ot argument and ‘purely and simply to
amuse myself*) a White Demon or daimon ; the
spirit of the Wlme Race against the spirit of the
Dark Race — the ‘mystical’ ‘dark’ race of the ro-
mantic-Wliitc imagination (not against — naturally
— any flesh and blood Black brother, or fellow-slave,
of the moment). Against this over-excitable, over-
susceptible romanticPWhitc, too, 1 bring the disci-
pline of my criticism, and offer him as cold a bath as
possible, where, for the period of immersion, at least,

147

PALEFACE

lie can keep cool. With its White {Demon I believe
the White Race ean be saved (instead of perishing
oil its way to the Melting-pot), if this demon can
only be properly utilized. He is a marvellous force,
who has manifested himself on many occasions, and
often given us evidence of his magical power. If
we do not entirely throw him over, he can yet be our
saviour: he was the ‘ daimon 5 of Socrates , this White
Demon we have inherited: he has vivid and
spectacular history that it would be unwise for his
antagonists to allow themselves to forget. It may
be that very rapidly many people of our race will
slop kowtowing to the ‘Dark Demon,' and turn
again to luin. And ultimately he may blanch or
bleach the entire Melting-pot.

But there 1 is no reason at all why we should not be
on excellent if ‘distant 5 terms with the ‘Dark One,’
c\en as m Byron’s Vision of Judgment we lind that,
when they met,

‘ His Darkness and his Brightness
Exchanged a greeting of extreme politeness . 5

There is no reason why we should not be exceed-
ingly polite to all that is ‘dark.’

From here onwards I am assembling as evidence
of what I lia\c so far In en discussing in the abstract,
quotations from those authors who have suggested
themselves to me as expressing most clearly the
‘dark 5 point of view. So at this point I am ter-
minating the first division of my survey.

148

S o o 1 1 o n T I

TIIE ‘ INFERIORITY COMPLEX ’ OF
THE ROMANTIC WHITE, AND
STUDENT SUICIDES

«

§ 1. Romance on iis Last (Physical) Legs.

T HE*lfssion for ‘the primitive’ among the
civilized, or (the same thing) the appetite for
thy '‘dark’ and exotic among the Whites,
made its first appearance m Europe, m its present
form, m the earlier part of the last century, at the
time of the Romantic Revival. So its romantic
genealogy is not m question. Baudelaire in 1850
went about with a mulatto mistress, and wrote some
of his most beaut iful poems to her crinkly head, her
‘tenebrous’ flanks, Iur ‘mysterious* eyes — full of
night and ‘savage’ properties. Latir, the french
boy-genius, Rimbaud, followed much the same lines,
disappearing at the age of twenty as a trader into
Africa. Still later, at the beginning of this century,
Paul Gauguin kicked the dust of Europe off his
shoes and departed to live with the Sout h Sea Island-
ers, whither the romantic Scotsman, Robert Louis
Stevenson, had preceded him. Going very much
further back, the Templars succumbed to the mys-
tical attractions of the lowest kind of orientalism,
and exchanged the europeamzed Master of St. Peter
for Baphomct: and at their trial it was alleged that
the Grand Master qf 1 he order had passionately re-
marked that ‘one hair of the head of a Saracen wus
more valuable than the whole body of a Christian.’

1 19

I PALEFACE

Nietzsche writes, in his Joyful Wisdom, ‘The bar-
barians have always loved the South ; and once they
got there, never wanted to come baek into the North
again,’ etc.

This was partly wanderlust, no doubt, partly ap-
preciation of a gentler climate and a nice blue sky.
But the European, like every of her man, Jhas always
had a fancy for the mysterious’ lands outside his
own, inhabited bv marvellous and strange peoples.
He has always ‘smelt strangeness,’ and mistaken
that for love. History is quite choked 4 with that
counterfeit.

Today these mysteries have been exploded. The
Age of Newton, as Mr. Bussell calls it, has destroyed
what was imposing and native in the great eastern
civilizations; and Bolshevism, with the full encour-
agement and assistance of the West, is westernizing
(and bolshevizing) the Eastern populat ions still more,
as it ‘nationalizes’ them m the Western sense; our
popular musical-eomedv actors and actresses spend
week-ends m Ilawai or Samoa; there is no ‘Darkest
Africa,’ or it is full of trippers shooting tame tigers;
our Earth has narrowed and is everywhere 1 accessible
and open to inspection What difficulties the
author of Arabia Deserta encountered m lus attempt
to make-believe to himself that he was in the heart
of an inaccessible, fanatical, and perilous land — a
sort of ‘Darkest Africa’-— any reader of Ins wonder-
ful book w ill rt member. So the position of Romance
is not what it was before the turbine engine, wireless,
etc. It wnll still be ds old ‘romantic’ self forever
(for the romantic cannot change its ‘dark’ cthiopian
skin) but henceforth it will be a shabby and dmnn-

150

ROMANCE ON ITS LAST (PHYSICAL) LEGS

ished one. Romance will never be the same Ro-
mance again, at least for a long time. The more
imaginative ‘romantics’ have taken to Time-travel
instead, disquieted with the vulgarity of Space.

Under these circumstances the romantic mind is
not so easy to justify to-day as it was even at the
time of Gajigum: infinitely less so than it was for
Baudelaire. There is scarcely any excuse for being
a romantic *<u*day, indeed, of the type of Hardy,
Zola, Baudelaire, Livingstone, Lafcadio Hearn, Ste-
venson or* Saugum. Yet there arc still a great
number of just the same sort of 'physical romantics ,
as they might be classified. But usually we find
them a little apologetic and uneasy or full of an epi-
leptic movement and borrowing more and more from
madness to substantiate their dream.

The class-romantic , like Tolstoi — romancing about
‘the peasant’ — even lie still exists, although Bol-
shevism has almost eliminated linn. But with his
political enthusiasms few people have any patience
today. On the whole that sort oi romantic may be
said to be extinct.

AJ1 these romantics I have been mentioning have
enormously assisted the overthrow of european
power; and they all have been like those cinema
actors and actresses in the movie studios described,
in one of the epigraphs to this essay, bv Sherwood
Anderson in the words :

‘Children, playing with dreams — . . American

dreams — Anglo-Saxon dreams ! ’

i

What was it that caused all these Northern
dreamers to dream things so physically, or politic-
al

PALEFACE

ally, disastrous to us, their descendants? Was it
that instinct of the aristocrat to throw him&elj down „
to return into the untaught and dispossessed mass
beneath him, dramatized in Strindberg’s Mademoi-
selle Julie ? Whatever the answer is, these Play-
boys of tin* Western World of the* last century, from
Byron and Shelley, those typical roma/itic revolu-
tionary aristocrats, down to the present time —
down to the people we are now discussing- — have
ruined us with their dreams — American dreams,
French dreams, Russian dreams. The generous im-
pulses of some of these aristocratic dreamers, to
relieve* distress, to give happiness to the poor, have
only resulted in debasing the Poor White still further,
till he bids fair to become the despised servant of the
coolie. The last action of the last of his feudal
masters was one that will soon result in a greater
abasement than ever before for him. This could be
made, by a fanatical proletarian, to look like malice!
Already in the East the White who is not Poor (and
so despised) is no longer respect ed. So it is im-
possible for us today, as average Whites, for whom
the Melting-pot is not the reality but only the tran-
sition, who at last see clearly this whole chain of
uncomfortable events, to thank those dreamers for
their expensive idealism Wo can do nothing blit
deplore their political short-sightedness, and all that
sentimental ‘liberalism’ or ‘radicalism’ that has
brought us where we are instead of to a position
where we should have been dictators of the Melting-
pot, free 1o jump m or not as r ve like — not at least
liable to be pushed in, like a small boy into his first
swinmung-baUi.

152

CONSCIOUSNESS AND ANNIHILATION

§ 2. The Consciousness of One Branch of Humanity is
the Annihilation of Another Branch.

In another quotation, used as epigraph to this
essay, Mr. Lawrence writes:

\The Indian* way of consciousness is different
from anil fatal to our way of consciousness. Our
way of consciousness is different from and fatal to
the Indian.’

He thenjjpntinues:

‘The two ways, the two streams are never to be
united. They are not even to be reconciled.
There is no bridge, no canal of connection. The
sooner we realize, and accept, this, the better . .

— ( Mornings in Mexico , p. 10 L)

To have been able to reach that conclusion is an
achievement for a White Man.

The consciousness of one blanch of humanity is the
annihilation of the consciousness oj another branch ,’
again he says

IIow entirely true ! Then why does Mr. Lawrence,
it is impossible not to ask, go on smelling round the
Indian Heaven and coquetting with the Indian gods?
just as Mr. Anderson, before Mr. Van Vechten, phil-
andered with the Nigger Heaven ? Why cannot he
learn to lca\e them alone, or at least to keep this as
a private luxury, and not try to communicate it to
the rest of the world? Why docs he attempt to
teach this alien (an<J> for the White, he announces,
‘fatal’; ‘consciousness’ to us? As well ask, of
course, why a man always wishes to proselytize about

153

PALEFACE

his pet vice. The more unusual it is, the more he
wishes every one to share it.

But Mr. Lawrence’s explanation is that he has ‘a
little ghost inside 5 him, which ‘sees both ways.’
And this arrangement he recommends to us. We
should all get such little optical ghlbsts. I will quote
the whole of this passage : #

‘The consciousness of one branch of humanity
is the annihilation of the consciousness of another
branch. That is, t he life of the Indian, his stream
of conscious being, is just death t<? (he White
Man. And we can understand the consciousness
of the Indian only in terms of the deatli of our
consciousness . . . the same paradox exists be-
tween the consciousness of white men and Hindu
or Polynesians or Bantu. It is the eternal para-
dox of human consciousness. To pretend that all
is one stream is to cause chaos and nullity. To
pretend to express one stream in terms of another,
so as to identify the two, is false and sentimental.
The only thing you can do is to have a little ghost
inside you which sees both w r ajs, or even many
ways. But a man cannot below* to both wavs, or
to many ways. One man can belong to one great
way of consciousness only, lit* may even change
from one way to another. IW lie cannot go
both ways at once. Can’t be done .’ — {Mornings
in Mexico , pp. 105, 100.)

All this appears to me exceedingly sound. But,
having regard to the locality it which it is uttered,
what lias taken its author there, and what he else-
where undoubtedly is proposing 1 o us, it is certainly

154

CONSCIOUSNESS AND ANNIHILATION

puzzling. The little tw T o-way-lookmg ghost is the
solution, of course, or the excuse for this glaring
paradox. Hut that is scarcely satisfying.

There is a great deal of argument today as to
whether the idea expressed in the proverb that
‘There are seeds in the body of the hare that are
fatal to the^body of the lion’ is a true one or not.
One set of disputants will tell you that 'all people
are the same' the face of much evidence to the
contrary ); and the other set will tell you that East
is East aiu^ West is West, and that the consciousness
of a race is deeply fixed, that it obstinately goes on
its way. and wlum its consciousness is starved, in-
hibited or destroyed, it, too, the race, ceases to exist .
Perhaps the truth is not quite on the side of either
of these disputants, but somewhere else and not to
be answered by such a simple statement.

Bui still there are many facts that suggest f hat a
race has a soul (or ‘consciousness,’ or whatever you
like to call it)- that il is vulnerable and of vital im-
portance to the race. I will quote a passage from
my book, The Ail o\ Being Ruled , to illustrate this.

§ When the ‘ Consciousness ’ u? Soul oj a Race is
Crushed , the Race C ollapses.

‘The Chukchee . . in spite of their hardiness,
are, however, subject to annihilating collapses of
vitality, of which the phenomenon of “arctic hys-
teria” is a celebrated symptom. But another
symptom is equalljjstnking. Prolonged slumber,
lasting many weeks, is common with them — a
suddenly recurring hibernation or estivation. A

155

PALEFACE

man will collapse, feeling unwell, and go to bed
and to sleep, and so remain until he either dies or
recovers. So the rjgour of the climate, claiming
of them unnatural hardihood and powers of resist-
ance, overwhelms them m this way once it passes
their guard. After the subjection of the, neigh-
bouring tribes by the Cossacks some fifty years
ago, it is said that the whole population suddenly
collapsed: they lost all interest aitd zest in life,
neglected their usual occupations, sank into a
listless poverty, and became almost a burden
and menace to their conquerors .’ — (Art of Being
Ruled, p. 295 .)

The neighbours of the Chukchee, deprived of their
freedom and of l lie natural expansions of their deep-
rooted ‘way of consciousness,’ or soul, sink back into
their arctic torpor, languish, and die. In my book.
The Art of Being Ruled, I suggested that it was not
only geographically unimportant races, like these
sub-arctic tribes, that were prone to these collapses
if suddenly interfered with, or defeated, to such an
extent that the deepest ‘consciousness’ or soul is
impaired. Also great nations or races, I contended,
may similarly suffer, and sink into a discouraged
torpor, just as much as may a *mall tribe. And m
that book I suggested that there were many symp-
toms m posMvar Europe of such a collapse. I cited
the widespread phenomenon of male-111 version as an
example of the form that this collapse w T as taking.
As the starch went out of thetn, the males relapsed
into what 111 Sodom arc* technically called 1 bitches,’
in a process of almost physiological transformation.

15 G

SUICIDE EPIDEMIC AMONG THE WHITES

The trying and unnatural conditions of the Machine-
Age, the elimination of individual ambition in\ol\cd
in the phenomenon of the Trust or Corporation, the
suicidal White War, and the shattering tremors con-
veyed to us by Ihc recent gigantic rc\olution m
Russia, and all it forebodes — these things are enough
to account tor anything.

4

§ 4. I)i. Bn than and the Sun ide Epidemic among ihc
Whites oj the United States .

I iLAvn^Jeppcd aside for a moment from an exam-
ination of the ideas of Mr. Lawrence, as picscnted in
Mornings in Mexico, to make quite clear what is
really the issue in his romantic pronouncements. I
shall be returning to his book immediately: but I
will interpolate another quotation here, of another
order, iiom a book that appeared during the month
of August m New Yoik, namely The Religion oj Be-
haviourism, by Di. Louis Berman. l)r. Berman I
have dealt with elsewhere (cf. Time and Western
Man). But the short book about Behaviourism he
has just produced oilcr> another and pleasanter
aspect of his talent, or rather phase of his peculiar
evolution. What has effected tins desirable change
m Dr. Berman I do not know f . But much that lie
says here appears quite sensible.

The discouragement, confusion, and decay or col-
lapse of communities (whether very laige or \cry
small) is what we are considering. It is our belief
that the White race, since the War (which m every
sense was a mortal L4 ow t to it), is, now (despite the
great advantages still remaining with it, and the
reasons for self-esteem to be found in its great posi-

157

PALEFACE

tion in the world, its supremacy up to the present),
suffering from many of those symptoms of discour-
agement, disbelief in itself and its destiny, and
material collapse, that have often been noticed in
other peoples. Whe n it is a small organism, a small
people, it decays and disappears quickly. , With
sueli a great and elaborately organized system as the
White European ' World, these sig^s arc far more
difficult to detect. And Dr. Berman’s chapter on
‘Suicide as a symptom,’ dealing with the recent
epidemic of american student suicides, is what has
made me go aside to examine this book before pro-
ceeding with Mr. D. II. Lawrence.

Dr. Berman gives an account of the phases of the*
extreme mechanical doctrine of Behaviour (of which
the principal exponent is Professor Watson), which
lie calls a ‘religion.’ Bui he cites Bergson as the
author of all that is anti-Behaviour, of all that is
Gestalt , of all that is admirable, according to him, m
the contemporary world. He attacks Science, under
its extreme (and its most comic and ridiculous) form,
Bcha\ lour. So he still stands not so far from where
he formerly did. For the significant opposition in
the contemporary \\orld is not between Bergson on
the one side, and Behaviour on the other. They are
much nearer together than they would each have us
believe. For if Behaviour conics out of E\olution,
does not also Creative Evolution and Bergson come
out of E\olution? The* real opposition is very
different from that.

‘Behaviourism or Waisominity ,’ says Dr. Ber-
man, then, Svas begotten by Darwinism out of the
modern scientific spirit. ... As a child of Darwm-

158

SUICIDE EPIDEMIC AMONG THE WHITES

ism . . . America may be expected to disgrace itself
about it as soon as its implications reach the demo-
cratic mind. The uproar . . concerning the teach-
ing of evolution . . . will turn out to be the foam of
a passing ship as compared with the howls which
will be emitted . / . when the full significance of the
New r Faith, finally filters down to their le\cl ’ (that
of the 1 backwaijfl and moronic’ mass of Americans).

The sooner the ‘morons’ of America ‘disgrace
themsehes’ with regard to ‘Behaviour,' the better,
in my view of the matter. But I hope while these
‘morons/ as Dr. Berman calls them, are about it,
that they will disgrace themselves about Creative
Evolution and Be rgson as well, and any other sort of
Evolution they can lay their moronesque hands on.

But Berman has been reading : I feel quite certain
that Berman must have been reading some 1 improv-
ing book or other - 1 wonder which it was? For
listen to him :

‘The Smart Set has become the Smart Crowd,
indeed tin* Smart Mob . . . urbanites and sub-
urbanites, wise because instructed by radio, tab-
loid and press agent, pride themselves on being
intellectually hard-boiled when thc\ are only
somewhat parboiled. . . . Behold the spectacle
then of our men and women of ideas accepting the
charge of being clcvensts, careerists, tnvialists,
as a compliment, but shrinking with the horror of
that most horrible of all horrors — the horror of
ridicule — from the stigma of being called senti-
mentalists, emotionalists, feelmg-ists.’

Ah, so the ‘morons’ do not only consist of Mr.

ISO

PALEFACE

Mencken’s favourite victims, the inhabitants of ‘the
backward States of the Union ’ ! They arc also to
be found among the ‘Smart Crowd/ these ‘morons’ :
and now 4 our men and women of ideas ’ turn out to
be 4 morons ’ ! That is a slight advance for Dr. Ber-
man. I am sure Berman must haiv been reading some
very enlightening book . But lie will lujvcr tell us
which it was, so lot us be grateful tl^it something or
other has happened to Dr. Berman that has made
him slightly more sensible, and leave it at that.

Well, the conditions described in thV above ex-
tract are suitable to discouragement , and to a view
of life that may at last persuade people that such an
existence as that is so futile that it is hardly worth
living: that is Dr. Berman’s argument. (And a
very good one, too.)

‘Behaviourism then is sympathetic to the age,’
lie say s.

‘By extravagantly exalting movement, by
placing’ what a man is doing ‘so implicitly m the
foreground . . . *

fl must interrupt Dr. Berman. If he is seriously
going to switch over to this line he must immediately
drop all that Bergson and Gestalt . For surely Berg-
son, of all people, was the mercurial philosopher of
incessant movement , of flux and luss. So he cannot
abuse those who ‘exalt moi cment ’ in one pari of his
book, and kowtow to Bergson in another — I will
now continue the quotation.]

‘ by regarding seriously the half-truth that

language is a scries of muscle twitchmgs, essen-
tially in the same class as walking or running, and

ICO

SUICIDE EPIDEMIC AMONG THE WHITES

by reducing the emotions to “nothing but” vis-
ceral reactions. . . . Behaviorism appeals to the
worshippers of noise in contemporary art and
manners . . . the believers in direct action in
politics hail its implications for them. In a time
like burs when among proliferating cities, in any
branch of human activity, niotiop and commotion
arc infinitely ^preferred to contemplation and
insight, the gospel of muscular (and glandular)
conduct as>the conquering creed of the twentieth
century may be expected to be hailed as the very
indigenous credo of a democratic people. — The
effects have been bad and will become worse.’

Where Berman got all this from I can’t guess; but
it is quite sensible, or so it naturally seems to the
author of the Art of Bring Hided and the Revolution-
ary Simpleton .

4 The bchavionst, m fact, comes to us with a
challenge to all our values, of good and evil, right
and wrong. There is no aspect of human life he
does not touch with liis ubiquitous concepts and
attitudes. ... In the law and m education he is
coming, with his defiant technique . . . his lan-
guage (is) the accepted nomenclature of the experts
and his theories the means by which the lives of
children are being regulated and mutilated.’

You would think, of course, here that Berman
was describing not Behaviourism, but Bolshevism,
or at least Psychoanalysis. I do not believe that
Behaviourism is the religious force that he pretends.
It is just the extreme gospel of the Machine Age.

l 161

PALEFACE

Every little average ‘goose-stepping, superstitious,
sentimental ’ unit of a present-day industrial mass-
democracy is a behaviourist. He would be just as
thorough a one without Professor Watson. Why
Behaviourism is so intolerable intellectually is not
because it leads , but because it follows thfc little
average ‘goose-stepping, superstitious, .sentimental’
unit of the mass-democracy, and Aakes a mechani-
cal imitation of this robot in the philosophic field.

Dr. Berman, however, is determined to treat it as
a religion. And at all events what he frays about
the effects of it, and of similar doctrines, upon the
more sensitive mind is no doubt correct:

‘Most to be dreaded of all the injuries that may
be inflicted by Behaviorism upon the souls of
sensitive personalities (the others do not matter)
is the ellect upon their sense of freedom, their
altitude of initiative, which means their feeling of
being intensely and fully alive. The repetitive
tom-tom of the Behaviorist drum is insistent
that we are wholly and totally the victims of con-
ditions beyond our control, from the moment of
birlh to the moment of extinction. . . . Without
regard to any central theme of individuality, move-
ment begets movement, habit begets habit. . . .

‘Consider the value ol yourself, of your lite, of
your strivings and efforts ... of the feeling of
your unique self m the light of the conditioned
reaction! . . . How invigorating to weakening
morale . . . ! To sec himself as the product of
muscle-twitchmgs and glai\d-oozings is the most
degrading spectacle of himself ever presented to
Man. . . .

162

SUICIDE EPIDEMIC AMONG THE WHITES

‘In the language of its protagonists: of all the
inodes ever offered for the use of conscious behav-
ior, Behaviorism has the least survival value.

‘ Information , ideas , theoiies about ourselves may ,
mts(U inevilabh^ kelp or hinder us to In e. The effect
may be t(j exa'), intensify, inspire, transform con-
sciousness ano' conduct. Or it aiay be to depress,
infect, sicken, dishearten to the point of death.’

Dr. Berman decides that it is Behaviourism (now,
he sajs, become a leligion) that has disheartened to
the point oj death a variety of Americans, especially
students, m the course of the v r car 1927. If the
religion of Behaviourism grows it will no doubt
(more than any Moloch, he assures us) claim more
and more victims.

In a chapter entitled fc Suicide as a Symptom * he
details a long list of student-suicides:

‘Recently there occurred an outbreak of suicide
among student youths. . . . Within a few months
a number ot students had taken their lives, leav-
ing behind them letters stating their sense of the
futility of keeping alive. The record runs: On
January 2nd a University of Illinois student killed
himself, writing that he had experienced all that
life contained ... the son of a specialist m mental
disorders shot himself m his father’s home. lie
found life “dark and worthless,” he wrote his
father. On January 23rd a student m the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin shot himself because he was
bored with this earth and wished to see how things
were over there,’ etc.

163

PALEFACE

§ 5. Races similarly ruined by the White Man.

And so Dr. Berman goes through a monotonous
list of amencan students who hang, shoot, poison,
or gas themselves because life is dark and empty.

► He considers this a phenomenal of the. same
sort as that noted by Dr. Hifers ^among the
Melanesians : • |

‘ W. II. R. Rivers once studied the degenera-

tion of the inhabitants of the Melanesian Islands
after the advent of the White Man. ‘Particularly
was he interested in the fact that m certain of the
islands there was almost complete extinction of
the native population, in spite of the presence ol
plenty oj the materials of subsistence and the absence
of epidemic ot unusual disease. ... he came to
the conclusion that these peoples were dying out
because they were losing their zest m life. And
they were losing their zest in life because the
coming and cunning of the White Man had under-
mined their attitude to life so completely as to
affect the very Will to Live.’
lie then proceeds :

‘It seems to me there is an analogy between the
state of mind of these students and the native
populations.’

In the Art of Being Ruled (Cliatto and Windus,
1926) I came to similar conclusions: and the quota-
tion I have used at the beginning of this part, relating
to the neighbours of the Chukchee, tells the same
story, on the authority of a traveller who had lived
with those tribes, as is told by Dr. Rivers of the

164

RACES RUINED BY THE WHITE MAN

Melanesians. Remove from a ra-raing Yale student
his ra-ra ! — and put nothing equally stimulating
there in its place — remove all his illusions about him-
self, as a huma* being (fortunate enough to belong
to a particularlyfeute nation, fortunate enough to be
of tliiNclass that yi # sent to Yale, fortunate enough to
have large musei . a s and to be a star in the world of
university sport', fortunate enough to have blond
eurly hair and so to attract the attention of all
beautiful girls met, or to be dark and sensitive-look-
ing, and^so to receive much attention as a likely
prey, etc. etc. etc.)— remove all these, or even an
appreciable portion of them, and your student will
lose his zest for life, just as the Melanesian or the
neighbour of the Chukchee did when deprived of
what were for him the equrvalent of those satis-
factions.

The White Man’s superior cunning is, however,
hardly the word, in describing what he destroyed
the Melanesian with. There was not nwugh ‘cun-
ning’ m the White Man, unfortunately. The de-
scendants of those Whites, students in amencan
universities, because they are not sufficiently ‘ cunning?
because they believe anything that is told them,
because they are too ‘goose-stepping, superstitious,
and sentimental’ (though not called ‘morons’ in-
variably by Berman and others whenever men-
tioned — but of course not, seeing that they are the
principal clients of Berman and others, the cultured
minority), because they have allowed themselves to
remain romantic, show a tendency now to destroy
themselves. Some nnnd more ‘cunning’ than the
White has enveloped them and infected them with

165

PALEFACE

a Consciousness 9 not their own. And if we look
round for the possessor of this more Cunning 9 nund
than the White mind, able to destroy it with its alien
Consciousness 9 (as Mr. D. II. Law* once would call
it), then we need not go to a hostilefracr, we can find
it m the mind of Science, more Cpnmng 9 certainly
than the vuy simple anglo-saxoi administrators,
who robbed the j'oor Indian of his / zest for life,’ or
‘Will to Live.’

Rut if the word Cunning 9 is to be the key to this
problem of the new ‘inferiority complex 9 of the
White, then eeitamly Behawourism comes very far
down the list, and must be disqualified at once. For
it is very simple and not at all cunning. Professor
Watson, as also Yerkes and most behaviourists and
‘testers,’ is a very simple, even stupid, man. Messrs.
Freud and Jung — or shall we say Einstein? — have
really had much more influence — and Psychoanalysis
and Relatiwtv, m all their various popular mani-
festations, are calculated to produce much more
effect.than poor threadbare, mechanical, unglamour-
ous, sexless. Behaviour .

§ G. Behaviow ist ‘ Summn Conversation . 9

That Behaviourism has its i ffi < L upon popular
thought, or at least upon the ficlionist, vho is the
middleman come} mg philosophic notions to the
minds of people not accessible to ideas m anything
but a sensuous and immediate form, of that there is
of course plenty of evidence/ I will take a con-
versation from Th( Apple of the Eye , by Glenway
Wescott, a ‘first no\cl,’ dealing with life in the

ICG

BEHAVIOURIST ‘SUMMER CONVERSATION’

•

Middle West. It is a conversation between a young
man and a boy, the former instructing the latter as
to the true character of life. For its possible real-
ism, you have to allow for the very intense puritanic
backgrounds provided for it by its ainenean setting.
% fc Dan hngeijed beside him. . .

wS “Tell me tyien,’ he asked, "‘don’t you believe
in chastity?”

"Mike’s eyes brightened at jfn opportunity to
teach. “What a queer question ! It has beaut)'.
Before I went to the university I thought it was
the only beautiful thing. To li\ e m the spirit in-
stead of tin flesh. The flesh nothing but candle-
wax under the flame. Then you feel that you’re
like Christ and all the saints. Puritanism appeals
to the imagination, but it makes people sick.”

" “Sick?” Dan echoed, confused.

fc “You see, there isn't anything but flesh.” He
spoke slowly, in broken phrases, pronouncing 1 he
tv ords with obvious pleasure. “We are all flesh;
when it \ weak, v r c ’re weak ; w hen n ’s sick, we ’re
siek; when it’s dead, we’re dead. Now w r e’re
civilized, we tiy to pretend that our bodies don’t
matter. But our minds, our imaginations, are
flesh too, and part of the w T hole. Puritanism is
like cutting a muscle m your arm, and trying to
move vour hand with its own muscles. . .

" “ Your religion is wrong,” Mike went on. . . .
“It cuts us m tw r o. It di\ ides the body from the
spirit. The body is what we are and the spirit
what w T e think. . .

‘ “And it is only pleasure, your kind of love?”
Dan asked wistfully.

167

PALEFACE

‘ “Only? Only pleasure?” Mike shouted, and
lus laughter turned quickly to an affectionate
seriousness. “Listen, boy. It ’s built on despair.
Once we thought life didn’t matter, wasn’t any-
thing but a preparation for ete&nty: a vale of
tears — with a sunny paradise, ufor y strange and
full of songs, all ready for t he wiwtliy. Tha“t \s all
over. We’ve found out we’re only«cells; they
break up w’hefi we die. We’ve found out that
we’re animals, just animals that remember more
and worry more. So life is the only thing that
does matter. A few years, thirty or forty or lifty
years, hungry years; then we end up here, under
the grass; and we’re going to have a good
tune. . . .”

‘ “And what is a good time?”

* “That . . .” Mike paused — “that is a ques-
tion.” He spoke the words jubilantly. “Joy,
delight, pleasure — there isn't any word.” Mike
stretched himself dreamily. . . .“Fun, without
anv end. A bunch of flowers, falling, falling, over
the eyes, over the mouth, till you're all still and
satisfied. . . .” ’

That is the central statement of the book (I am
not considering it with reference to its merits as a
book, but only as evidence for the infiltration ot
philosophic ideas), and it is beha\ louristic more than
anything else, I suppose. Tt is no doubt some such
attitude as that, resulting from Behaviourism, of
which Dr. Berman was thinking. But Behaviour-
ism alone would not have produced even that, or
anything like it. All the influences that, however

108

RACE OR IDEAS?

paradoxically at first sight, fit into Behaviourism,
must also be counted into the whole effect. And
Bergson and Gestalt , and so Berman, is one of them.
It will now bej possible, I think, for any reader to
return to the ‘^ark 9 matter of Mornings in Mexico
with a clear grc.sp not only of the manner m which
I am approaching what Mr. Lawrence has to sav,
but also with more chances of understanding some
of the remoter, and indeed \ery extended and im-
portant, implications of what he is saying.

§ 7. Race or Ideas?

I will quote once more the passage of lus with
which I began :

‘The Indian wav of consciousness is different
from and fatal to our w ay of consciousness. Our
w r a\ of consciousness is different from and fatal
to the Indian. The two ways, the two streams
are never to be united. . . . The consciousness
of one branch of humanity is the annihilation of
the consciousness of another branch. That is,
the life of the Indian, his stream of conscious
being, is just death to the White man.” — (Morn-
ings m Mexico, p. 105.)

Let iis place this side by side with the similar
passage from Dr. Berman :

‘In the language of its protagonists: of all
the modes e^er offered for the use of conscious
behavior, Behaviorism has the least survival
value. . . . Information, ideas, theories about
ourselves may, must, inevitably help or hinder us

169

PALEFACE

to live. The effect may be to exalt, intensify,
inspire, transform consciousness and conduct. Or
it may be to depress, infect, sicken, dishearten to
the point of death.’ i

f

So the ‘stream of conscious be/nq,’ which is the
Mexican Indian, ‘is just death to the White Man.’
That is Mr. Lawrence. For Dr. Berman ‘ideas and
theoiies* are capable of aehie\mg the same result.
They can ‘depress, infect, sicken, dishearten to the
point of death.’

Is it necessary for this different ‘consciousness/
between wlueh and ours ‘there is no bridge, no canal
of connection,’ this soul , to he incarnated m a Mexi-
can Indian (or a Ilmdu, a Polynesian or a Bantu, to
choose Mr. Lawrence’s other examples) ? Or can
this be merely a disincarnatc idea? Is the scien-
tific or mathematical man of genius as good for those
destructive purposes as the Toltee or Hopi? Or
must it he a ract ?

The romantic side in Mi . Lawrence, las love of the
sensationally concrete, would always dispose him
to seek tins situation m the psychological clash of
races, as others can only s* t it in classes. He sees
it as a 7 ace situation and also quite conventionally,
as a conventional and wholly melodramatic race
situation. East is East, and West is West, and the
unbridgeable something— the alien and unassimilable
seed m the matrix of the Indian ‘conseiousiu ss.’ -will
not accommodate itself to the White. It is a fight
to the death. One or the other dies.

My more abstract interests would naturally make
me seek it rather in ideas than in laces. I admit,

170

• RACE OR IDEAS?

however, that the culture of one race, acquiring a
political mastery over another, and imposing its
ideas upon it, Is able and very likely to destroy the
soul and so lilt physical life of another race. There
are too many events that testify to it m leeent his-
tory for that not* to be beyond possibility of ques-
tion. But an idea is quite as powerful. E\en a
race, for that matter, can annihilate another race
with a sAvarm of ideas, or mtelleetualized notions;
ideas proper to itself but Avith properties of disin-
tegration for another race; or with ideas not neces-
sarily its own, but such as it could manipulate with-
out injury to itself, and which are destructive to its
adversary. W e ha\ T c examples of something of that
kind. But the ideas themselves, swarming over
from the fields of scientific research, arc just as
potent. 4nd though thev do no harm to their
trained manipulator, they ma\ be harmful enough
to those Avhom they attack. Besides, tlure is no
puAverful race with A\hom \\e arc m contact whose
alien ‘ consciousness ’ could affect us m this waj,
unless you count the half-asiatie masters of Russia,
whose ideas, it is true, are pouring through our con-
sciousness, and a modified and diluted form of Avhose
gospel has established itself in our midst.

If we war m touch with an alien ‘consciousness’
( there would be no need even to b< physically at war
with its possessors) m the avuv that the Melanesians
Avere with the White, or the neighbours of the Chuk-
chee avj tli the Russian, on terms difficult and dis-
advantageous to ourselves, then avc should find that
‘consciousness,’ no doubt, mimical, confusing and
dangerous to our vital impulses, as Mr. Lawrence

171

PALEFACE

describes. And in the same way the Whites cer-
tainly are finding the attack of alien rleas confusing
and dangerous for their Will and In ’agination, just
as much as though they were cleaijy, sharply and
picturesquely incarnated m some alien people, with
whom we came in daily contact, alid who had tested
us politically. So the racial analogy .will serve.
But you must fix* your eye on something less palp-
able — on systems of ideas, and a restless mass of
theories.

Wc are almost reminded of the superstitions as-
sociated with the tombs of the egyptian dead, and
the belief in the unlucky nature of the enterprise of
the excavator: the late Lord Carnarvon and Tutan-
kamen, for instance. His death seemed to come very
suddenly after disturbing Tutankamen. — The White
Man has unearthed and brought to light an enorm-
ous historical rubbish-heap: there is nothing he has
not excavated and brought into his own ‘conscious-
ness 5 for examination. Sonic of the distant charms
and remote systems have released into his ‘stream
of consciousness’ things that are not healthy for it,
perhaps ?

These general considerations (which presented
themselves and demanded to be dealt with at the
beginning of this section) disposed of, we can return
to the Mexican Indians, Toltec and Hopi.

The Toltec and Hopi, Mr. Lawrence believes, and
with that I for one am prepared to agree, might be
dangerous for the ‘consciousness’ of Mr. Lawrence
if he did not possess that ‘little ghost’ looking both
ways at once, on account of which he is immune. So
they will do no harm to one of the most justly cele-

172

•RACE or ideas?

bratcd of endish novelists, we can be reassured.
And it is verjV unlikely that the ‘consciousness’ of
the Toltec andjjHopi will ever cause any noticeable
embarrassment at this time of day to anybody else.
At least this would be so if it wnc not for Mr. Law-
rence (the only Wfiite liable, even, to interference at
the hands »f these faded daimons).

Through Mr. Lawrence (who mtikes himself into
a sort of Hopi or Toltec for the occasion), they may
still add their quota of confusion to the civilized
world. Jt’or Mr. Lawrence is repeatedly telling his
White readers that they are poor specimens com-
pared to his energetic and ‘mysterious’ Indians, and
a certain proportion of his White readers are liable
to believe this, and add this ‘theory,’ or 'informa-
tion’ (whichever you care to call it) to the material
of then rapidly developing ‘inferiority complex.’
(For wc are speaking, too, of a ‘consciousness,’ of
which often enough, even, people are not conscious.)
It is perhaps bv itself a tiny factor, bul it fits m with
‘The Revolt of Asia igainst White Civilization,’ or
what not. So it is wortli while to examine it. If
wc get to understand one or two things of this kind
thoroughly, ue shall understand the lot.

173

PALEFACE

f

Section III f

‘ LOVE ? WHAT HO ! SPELLING

STRANGENESS ’

*>

§ 1. ‘IVc Whiles, creatines oj apiiit .’ — P. H. Law-
rence. *

I WILL now turn to Mr. D. H. Lawrence’s ac-
count of the Mexican Indian, and especially to
his chapter ‘ Indians and Entertainment
‘It is almost impossible for the White people to
appioach the Indian without either sentimentality
or dislike.*

[Mr. Lawrence proves himself in this respect a
good, While Man , I think, m his book about the
Indian. There is no sign of dislike, so he is the other
sort of conventional White Man.]

‘The common healthy vulgar White usually
feels a certain native dislike of these drumming
aboriginals.’

Mr. Lawrence we can at once agree is not ‘a
common healthy vulgar White*; he has nothing
very ‘native* about him, cither white oi dark.

‘The highbrow invariably lapses into senti-
mentalism hke the smell of bad eggs.’

Mr. Lawrence is a ‘highbrow,’ about that I think
there cannot be two opinions. And a ‘sentimental-
ism like the smell of bad eggs,’ I am sorry to have to
say, rises from all the work of Mr. Lawrence. It

174

‘WE WITTES, CREATURES OF SPIRIT’

is all slight! yl‘ high’ arid faisandc in a sentimental
way. \

Anyhow, faJ from ‘disliking’ the ‘ drumming 1 of
these ‘aboriginals,’ there is no question that he likes
it \gcry much; and hca\ lly implied in all his d< scrip-
lions is the notion that these drumming and other
‘native’ habits are far superior to ours; the dark
ones to the white. If we followed Mr. Lawrence to
the ultimate conclusion of Ins romantic teaching,
we should allow our ‘consciousness’ to be over-
powered by the alien ‘consciousness’ of the Indian.
And we know what he thinks that would involve:
for he has told us that ‘the Indian way of conscious-
ness is different from and fatal to our way of con-
sciousness.’

We w T ill now turn to his account of the specific way
in which this ‘consciousness’ of the Mexican Indian
differs from ours.

The ‘commonest entertainment among the Ind-
ians,’ we are told (that is I suppose among the ‘com-
mon healthy vulgar' Indians, if Mr. Lawrence’s
romantic soul could bring itself to admit that a
Toltec or a Hopi could be ‘common’ or ‘vulgar’),
‘is singing round the drum, at evening.*

There are fishermen in the Outer Hebrides, he
says, who do something of this sort, ‘approaching
the mdian way,’ but of course, being mere Whites,
they do not reach or equal it. Still, the Outer
Hebrideans do succeed m suggesting to Mr. Lawr-
rence a realm inhabited by ‘beasts that . . . stare
through . . . vivid mindless eyes.’ They do man-
age to become mindless : though not so mindless as
the Indian, therefore inferior.

175

PALEFACE

‘This is approaching the India m song. But
even this is pictorial, conceptual far t eyond the Ind-
ian point. The Hebridean sti ll sees himself human,
and outside the great naturalistic influences. . . .’

The poor White Hebridean still, alas, remains
human, he is not totally mindless, though more
nearly so than ary other White Mr. Lawrence off-
hand can bring to mind.

The important thing to note in all these accounts
is the insistence upon mindlessness as an essential
quality of what is admirable. The Hebridean is not
to be admired so much as the Mexican Indian be-
cause he still deals m 4 conceptual,’ ‘ pictorial * things ;
whereas the Mexican Indian is purely emotional —
‘musical,’ in a word, in the Spenglcr sense. (For
the full analysis of this type of thinking I refer you
to Time and Western Man, where there is a detailed
account of spenglensm.) And the first impulse to
the anti-coneeptualist, anti-intellectual, anti-pictor-
lal point of view in philosophy, and thinking gener-
ally, was given by Bergson: just as m Berman’s
account of Behaviourism we saw linn attributing
the genesis of Gestalt to Bergson. So at last we
know just where we are, philosophically, with Mr.
Lawrence. Mr. D. H. Lawrence is a distinguished
artist — member of the great and flourishing society
of ‘Emergent Evolution,’ ‘Creative Evolution,’
‘Gestalt,’ ‘ World-as-History,’ etc. etc.

§ 2. Mr. Lawrence a Follower oj the Bergson-Spcngler

School.

I will go on quoting to show how completely Mr.
Lawrence is beneath the spell of this evolutionist,

176

THE BtrttGSON-SPENGLER SCHOOL

emotional, nol-human, ‘mindless’ philosophy: and
how thorougmy he reads it into and applies it to
the manifestations of the Indian ‘consciousness.’

‘The Indian, singing, sings without words or
vision.'

I am italicizing the expressions that it is parti-
cularly necessary to mark in wh^t I am quoting.
How the attitude to ‘words,’ on the one hand, and
to ‘vision’ and the things of \ision, ‘pictorial’
things, on the other, is puie Spongier!

‘Faice lifted and flightless', eyes half dosed and
visionlcss, mouth open and speechless, the sounds
arise m Ins chest, from the consciousness in the
abdomen .’

A ‘consciousness in the abdomen’ or a visceral
consciousness (which otherwise is ‘sightless,* ‘ vision-
less,’ and k speechless “) is what we commonly should
call unconsciousness . And indeed that is what — if
we wrire to capitalize it under one v\ord — we should
take as describing tlic kernel of this propagandist
account. It is as a servant of the great philosophy
of the Unconscious (which began as ‘Will’ with
Schopenhauer, became k Tlie Philosophy of the
Unconscious’ with Von Hartmann, launched all
that ‘the Unconscious’ means m Psychoanalysis,
and was ‘Intuition’ for Bergson, which is ‘Time’
for Spcngler, and ‘Space-Time’ for Professor Alex-
ander) that Mr. Lawrence is writing.

‘ The consciousness in the abdomen ’ removes the
vital centre into the viscera, and takes the privilege
of leadership away from the hated ‘mind 1 or ‘in-
tellect,’ established up above in the head.

177

M

PALEFACE

§ 3 Spengler and the ‘Musical' Consciousness.

The c sounds that arise . . . from the conscious-
ness m the abdomen’ should be compared with the
‘sounds' 1 or ‘sound-symbols 1 transcending mere
words of Spongier. When Speitgler is trying to
give us an idea of what lie means by ‘Time/ for in-
stance, lie writes'.

1 “Time” — that which wc actually feel at the
sound of the word, which is clearer m music than
in language . . . has this organic essence, which
Space has not/

As I have pointed out elsewhere, Spongier’ s is in
the same sense an ‘organic philosophy 1 as White-
head’s. (The ‘philosophy of organic-mechanism’
is how Professor Whitehead describes his philo-
sophy.) — These names and bare indications will sug-
gest to you the theories that lie behind the romantic
interpretations of Mr. Lawrence. I cannot here go
into his philosophic derivations any more than to
indicate very generally what they arc. — So, with
him, we sec the impulses of the evolutionist, organic
plnlosoplu reaching the glorification of the ‘con
sciousncss in the abdomen 1 - -a sort of \isceral, ab-
dominal, mind. involved with the gonadal affective
apparatus, and establishing m these ‘centric parts'
a new rc\olutionary capital, the n\al and enemy of
the head, with its hated intellect , the aristocratic
prerogative of the human being, that is such tin
offence to communism.

‘Every higher languagc/says Spengler, ‘pos-
sesses a number of words . . . about which there

178

the ‘ Musical ’ consciousness

is a veil. No hypothesis, no science, can ever got
into touch with that which we feel when w r e let
ourselves sink into the meaning and sound of these
words. They arc symbols, not notions. . . . The
Dcstim -idea demands . . . depth , not intellect
— (Decline of the West , p. 117 of english transla-
tion.)

In Spengler's language (winch, as you see, is
‘sound’ or ‘music,’ as he calls it, not anything so
definite gs zvotd, s) ‘Time* is about the same thing as
‘ Destinv.’ To say that it was the same would be to
suggest an exactitude which is foreign to Spengler.
And upon the feminine nature of ‘Time’ or ‘Destiny*
Spengler insists a great deal.

‘Endhv,s Becoming is comprehended m the idea
of Motherhood . Woman as Mother is Time and
is Destiny.’

A glorification of the Feminine principle, natur-
ally, is also a great feature of the writing of Mr.
D. H. Lawrence. The joining up of all these thread %
is no doubt a tax upon the reader’s attention, and
I wish it were not necessary so often to set out the
evidence of what T am writing. But if I confined
myself to assertion, or to a reference, merely, to
where these parallels could be found, and omitted to
give the text of some of the things at lea^t to w hich
I refer, my argument would not be so substantially
founded as it is, and above all, for piactical pur-
poses, would want the convincing appeal domed
from ‘chapter and verse.’

179

PALEFACE

§ 4. Communism , Feminism , and the Unconscious
jound in the Mexican Indian by Mr. Law-
rence.

One of the rhythmical patterns of ‘sound’ pro-
duced by t lie Indian the latter describes as a ‘Lear
hunt,’ Mr. Lawrence tells us.

'But,’ say\Mr. Lawrence, ‘the man coming
home from the bear hunt is any man, all men, the
bear is any bear, every bear, all bear. There is no
individual , isolated expedience. It is the hunting
. . . demon of manhood which has won against
the . . . demon of all bears. The experience is
generic, non-individual.’

So we reach Mr. Lawrence's communism, cast into
the anthropologic moulds fiist prepared by Sir
Henry Manic. For Mr. Lawrence is, m full hys-
terical flow er, perhaps our most accomplished enghsh
communist. lie is the natmal communist , as it w r ere,
as distinguished from the indoctrinated, or tlico-
ictic, one.

(1) The Unconscious; (2) The Feminine; (3) The
Communist : those are the mam principles of action
of the mind of Mr. Lawrence, linked m a hot and
piping trinity of rough-stuff primitivism, and freud-
ian hot -sex-stuff. With Sons and Lovers, his fir
book, he was at once hot-foot upon the fashionable
trail of incest; the book is an eloquent wallowing
mass of Mother-love and Sex-idolatry. His Women
in Love is again the same thick, sentimental, luscious
stew. The ‘Homo ’-motive, how could that be
absent from such a compendium, as is the nature of
Mr. Lawrence, of all that has long passed for ‘rcvolu-

180

COMMUNISM IN THE MEXICAN INDIAN

tionarjV reposing mainly for its popular effective-
ness upon the meaty, succulent levers of sex and
supersex, to bait those politically-innoccnt, roman-
tic, anglo-saxon simpletons dreaming their ‘anglo-
4 axon dreams,’ whether m America or the native
country of Mr. LaVrenee ? The mot if of the * child-
cult,’ which is usually found prominently m any
‘revolutionary’ mixture, is cchted, and indeed
screamed, v ept and bellowed, throughout Sons and
Lover*.

At first sight, I ani afraid, many of the rappiachc -
men Is that I make here may sound strained, since,
I am sorry to sav, if things do not he obviously to-
gether and publish their conjunction explicitly and
prominently, it is not considered quite respectable
to suggest that they have anv vital connection.
The suggestion of anything ‘illicit’ shocks, even
where ideas are concerned. That one idea should
have a hidden liaison or be m communication with
another idea, without e\er approaching it in public,
or any one even mentioning them together — that is the
sort of thing that is neve r admitted in polite society.

So the majority of people are deeply unconscious
of the affiliations of the various phenomena of our
tune, which cm the surface look so very autonomous,
and even hostile ; yet, existing under quite a different
label, in a quite different region of time and space,
they are often closely and organically related to one
another. If you test this you will be surprised to
find how many things do belong together, m fact,
m our highly contentious and separatist time.

Yet it is our business — especially, it appears, mine
— to establish these essential liaisons, and to lay

m

PALEFACE

bare the widely-flung system of cables connecting up
this maze-like and destructive system in the midst
of which we live — destructive, that is of course, to
something essential that we should clutch and be
careful not to lose, on our way to the Melting-pot
What, you might say, for instance, has Mr. Law-
rence’s remark about the ‘mindlessness 9 of the Mexi-
can songs got t** do with communism ? Or, again,
‘mindlessness 9 or ‘communism 9 to do with ‘the
Feminine Principle’ (as opposed to the Masculine)?
I can show you at once wlml ‘mindlessness 9 has to
do with ‘communism.’ I will quote the latest euro-
pean advocate of Bolshevism, ltene Fulop-Miller,
from his book The Mind and Face of Bolshevism .
It should really be called The Face of Bolshevism*
since we learn that ‘Mind 9 is of all things what Bol-
shevism is concerned to deny and prohibit. He is
relating how the ‘higher type of humanity 9 is to be
produced, the super-humanity of which Bolshevism
is the religion.

‘It is only by such external functions as the
millions have m common, their uniform and simul-
taneous movements, that the many can be united
in a higher umt\ : marching, keeping m step,
shouting “hurrah ” in unison, festal singing m
chorus, united attacks on the enemy, these are the
manifestations of life which are to give birth to
the new and superior type of humanity. Eva y -
thing that divides the many fiom each other , that fos-
ters the illusion of the individual importance of man ,
especially the “ sovlf hinders this higher evolution
and must consequently be destroyed . . . organiza-
tion is to be substituted for the soul . . . the

182

COMMUNISM IN THE MEXICAN INDIAN

vague mystery of the “soul,” with that evil handed
down from an aecursed individualistic past. . . .’

Let us now continue with our quotations from
Mr. Lawrence.

'There is no individual , isolated experience. . . .
1 1 is an experience of the blood- stream, not of the
mind or spirit. Hence the subtle incessant insist-
ent rhythm of the drum, winches pulsated like a
heart, and soulless and inescapable. Hence the
strange blind unanimity of the . . . nun’s voices.’

As jvu see, it might equally be Mr. Fulop-Miller
on the beauties of Bolshevism. The Mexican Ind-
ian of Mr. Lawrence is the perfect Bolshevik. The
‘blind unanimity of the men's voices’ (the ‘keeping
in step . . . festal singing in chorus’ of Fulop-
Miller) assures ‘soullessness.’ The ‘soul . . . must

be destroyed * says the apostle of Bolshevism. ‘

the Indian song is non-individual. . . . Strange
cfappmg, crowing, gurgling sounds, m an unseizable
subtle rhythm, the rhythm of the heart m her throes :
. . . from an abdomen where the great blood-
stream surges m the dark, and surges in its own
generic experiences.’

To witness all this is, to Mr. Law r rence, heaven.

‘ perhaps it is the most stirring sight m the

world m the dark, near the fire, with the drums
going,’ etc. etc.

‘It is the dark blood falling back from the mind,
from sight and speech and knowing, back to the
great central source where is rest and unspeakable
renewal.’

On the same principle as ‘Back to the Land,’ the
183

PALEFACE

cry of Mr. Lawrence (good little Freudian that he
has always been) is ‘Back to the Womb!’ For al-
though a natural communist and born feminist, it
required the directive brain of Freud and others to
reveal lam to himself.

‘We Whites, creatures of spirit?! he cries. Ah,
the ‘strange’ things we ‘nevci icalize’! (sueli as the
‘strange falling jb^ck of the blood . . . the down-
ward rhythm, the rhythm of pure forgetting and
pure renewal ').

§ 5. The Indian a c Dilhytambic Speetato

As to the pantheism of Mr. Lawrence’s Mexican
Indian, the following passages inform us about
that:

‘There is strictly no god. The Indian does not
consider himself as created, and therefore external
to God, or the creature of God . . . Creation is a
great flood, for ever flowing. .

Everythin i* Flows!— -for the Indian, as for Bergson,
Mr. Lawrence, etc. In art the Mexican Indian ap-
proximates closely to the ideal of the contemporary
bolshevik theatre (the principles of which 1 ha\e
discussed in an essay. The Dithyrambic Speetato?).

‘There is no division between actor and audi-
ence. It is all one.’

‘There is no OnJooktr. There is no Mmd.
There is nc> dominant idea. . . . The Indian is
complete]) embedded m . . . Ins own drama.
It is a drama that has no beginning and no end.
... It can’t be judged, because there is nothing
outside it, to judge it.’

184

THE INDIAN A 4 DITIIYR AMBIC SPECTATOR*

It is evidently just like life . It is a form of natural-
ism, the mystical form. And above all there is no
bunk about mind. Mind is kept in its place, m the
mdian idea of drama !

'The mind is time merely as a servant. . . . The
mind bows dowh before the creative mystery.’

As to the good and the bad, that rfgam consists in
being possessed of a personal will or individuality
(which is wicked), or not being possessed of anj indi-
viduality (which is virtuous).

‘Wickedness lies in . . . seeking to prostitute
the creative wonder to the individual mind and
will. . .

The magician, the Prospero, is the supremely
wicked person in the Indian scheme of tilings, m the
eyes of iliesc ‘soulless,’ ‘drumming,* visceraliv-
chumed-up Calibans. Magic, ‘witchcraft,’ Mr.
Lawrence tells us, is the archetype of all wickedness.

What is virtue m woman? Mr. Lawrence be-
comes very Western at once, under the shadow of a
kind of sulfragist -chivalry, at the mere thought of
‘Woman.’

‘In woman [virtue] is the putting forth of all her-
self m a delicate, marvellous, sensitiveness, which
draws forth the v onder to herself, etc.’ (To ‘draw
the wonder to herself’ is to be a witch, surely? So
virtue and wickedness would get a little mixed up.)

What would the Indian think if he heard his squaw
being written about m that strain? — ‘delicate, mar-
vellous sensitiveness.’ He would probably say
‘Chuck it, Archie!* m Hopi. At least he would be

195

PALEFACE

considerably surprised, and probably squint very
hard, under his ‘dark’ brows, at Mr. Lawrence.

§ C. The Under-Pan of and the Over-Don.

When we are busy contrasting the White ‘con-
sciousness* with the Dark, we arc always compelled
to remember tiftit then 1 are other ‘consciousnesses 9
as well, perhaps even more hostile. Mr. Lawrence’s
lirst chapter, ‘Corasimn and the Parrots , 9 is devoted
to extending the idea of race - 4 consciousness 9 (in the
sense of different species of men) to the whofe animal
world.

In the patio of his house Mr. Lawrence sits on a
sunny morning m Mexico : and he ‘makes an instant
friend of the reader’ (the publisher assures you on
the back of the dust-cover) by telling you that he is
only ‘one little indi\ idual looking at a bit of sky and
trees, then looking down at the page of an exercise
book.’ {Exercise book! Quite like a little child.)
lie is nothing if not democratic, Mr Lawrence: just
a ‘little individual,’ like yourself, dear reader, but
bringing you a sunlit Morning all the way from
Mexico.

In the patio is a dog, called Corasnnn. lie is an
even s mallet individual than Mr. Lawrence. fc Cor-
asmm is a little fat, curl} white dog. . . . His little
white nose is sharp, and under Ins eyes are dark
marks, as under the eyes of one who has known
much trouble. All day he docs nothing but walk
resignedly out of the sun, when the sun gets too
hot, and out of the shade when the shade gets too
cool.’

186

1

THE UNDER-PARROT AND THE OVER-DOG

Meantime the parrots m the trees look down into
the court, and observe the dog with hatred. All day
long they mock him and lus two-legged masters; for
all the world as the negroes mock the Whites in
Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter . — Chapter One
of Mr Lawrenee’S book is an aeeounl of the ‘Dark
Laughtei ’ of the parrots, in short.

‘ “ Perro ! Oh, Perr-rro ! Pei'f-rr-rro ! ! ” shriek
the parrots, with that strange penetrating, ante-
diluvian malevolence that seems to make even the
trees # prick tlieir ears. It is a sound that pene-
trates one straight at the diaphragm, belonging to
the ages before brains were invented.’

There we are back at the dear old ‘mysterious’
abdomen, once more! The ‘dark laughter’ of the
mocking parrots goes m at the stomach, straight to
the a lseeral ‘consciousness,* disdaining the meie ear
and brain. At this point we grow 7 very primitive
indeed. We are in the antediluvian w 7 orId with
these parrots, who continue to pour ‘vitriolic’
mockery over the piesent masters of this earth,
namely men and dogs.

§7. Evolution, d la Metrical ne: (genre cutaelysmique,
d la Marc).

Here is Mr. Lawrence’s picture of Evolution d la
mericainc .

‘Myself, I don’t believe m evolution, like a long
string hooked on to a First Cause. ... I prefer
to believe in wdiat the Aztecs called Suns: that is.
Worlds successively created and destroyed. The

187

PALEFACE

sun itself convulses, and the worlds go out like so
many candles. . . . Then subtly, mysteriously,
the sun convulses again, and a new set of worlds
begin to flicker alight.

‘I like to think of the world jjoing pop! When
the lizards had grown too unwieldy, and it was
time they were taken down a peg or two.’

ft

You see it is evolution just the same, with giant
lizards and so forth But a jealous god 'mysteri-
ously’ takes things dow r n a peg or two periodically.
It is cataclysmic evolution, a la Marx, rather than
evolutionary evolution .

‘Then the little humming-birds beginning to
spark m the darkness and a whole succession of
birds shaking themselves clean of the dark matrix
. . . parrots shrieking about at midday, almost
able to talk, then peacocks unfolding at evening.
. . . And apart from these little, pure birds, a lot
of unwieldy skmny-neckcd monsters bigger than
crocodiles, bargmg through the mosses; till it was
time to put a stop to them Then some one mys-
teriously touched the button, and the sun went
bang, with smithereens of birds bursting m all
directions. Only a few parrots’ eggs and pea-
cocks’ eggs and eggs of flamingoes smuggling in
some safe 1100k, 1 o hatch on the next Day, when
the animals uro»e.

‘Up reared the elephant, and shook the mud ofl
his back. The bird* watched him in sheer stupe-
faction. “What? What m heaven’s name is
this wingless, beakless old perambulator?”

‘No good, oh birds » Curly little white Coras-

EVOLUTION A LA MEXICAINE

nun ran yapping out of the undergrowth, the new
undergrowth, till parrots, going white at the gills,
flew off into the aneientest recesses. Then the
terrific neighing of the wild horse w r as heard in the
twilight for the first time, and the bellowing of
lions through the night.

‘And the birds w r ere sad. “ What is this l ” they
said. “A whole vast gamut of- # ncw \oices. A
universe of new voices.”

‘Then the birds under the leaves hung their
heads and were dumb. “No good our making a
sound,” they said. “We are superseded ”

‘. . . Only the real litile feathery individuals
hatched out again and remained. This was a con-
solation. The lai ks and w arblers cheered up, and
began to sav their little sa^ , out of the old “Sun,”
to the new r sun. But the peacock, and the turkey,
and the raven, and tlic parrot above all, they
could not get over it. Because, in the old da\ s of
the Sun of Birds, they had been the big guns.
The parrot had been the old boss of the flock, lie
was so clever.

‘Now he was, so to speak, up a tiee. Nor dare
he come down, be cause of the toddling little curly
w T hile Corasnun. and such -like, down below. He
felt absolutely bitter. That wingless, beakless,
fcatherless, curly, misshapen bird’s nest of a Cor-
asmin had usurped the face* of the earth, w r add!mg
about, w'liereas his Grace, the hea\v-noscd old
Duke of a parrot, was forced to sit out of reacli
up a tree, dispossessed.

‘So, like the riff-raff up in the gallery at the
theatre, aloft m the Paradise of the vanished Sun,

189

PALEFACE

he began to whistle and jeer. Yap-Yap ! said his
new little lordship of a Oorasmin. “Ye Gods!”
ened the parrot. “Hear him forsooth! Yap-
Yap! he savs! Could anything be more imbe-
cile? Yap-Yap ! Oh, Sun of the Birds, hark at
that! Yap-Yap-Yap! Pcrro* Pcrro! Pcrr-
rro! Oh, Pcrr-rr-rro! ”

‘ The third Sun burst in water. . . . Out of the
floods rose our own Sun, and little naked man.
“Hello!” saul the old elephant. “What’s that
noise?” ’

‘ ‘ Come on! Pen o' Pen o'” called the naked
two-legged one. And Corasnnn, fascinated, said
to •himself: “Can’t hold out against that name.
Shall have to go!” so off he trotted, at the heels
of the naked one.

‘And m the branches the parrot saul to himself:
“ Hi llo! What 's this new sort of halj-bird ? Wlvp
lie's got Corasmrn trotting at his heels! Must be a
new sort of boss! Let’s listen to him, and see if
I can't take him off

‘“Perr-rro! Perr-rr-rro-oo ! Oh, Pcrro!”

‘ The parrot had hit it.

I need not point, out to the reader, probably, the
virtues of t his passage as a tour dc force of literary
art. If is reminiscent of the best manner of Anatolc
France, only possessing greater freshness — and in-
deed the whole book is one of the best of Mr. Law r -
rcncc’s that I have read. Unfortunately I have had

190

EVOLUTION A LA MEXICAINE

to compress this lengthy passage, for all we are con-
cerned with here is the notions underneath it, and
not the literary expression.

What this very vivid mock-account of a series of
cataclysms and aztee ‘Suns’ reveals is the same
thread of feeling as*is to lie found everywhere else in
the book, and in those other numerous books whose
underlying ideas, or philosophy, I iftn scrutinizing
here. On the earth beneath, strutting about, is the
ridiculous little white dog; up m the trees is the
dignified aristocratic parrot. But the parrot is
forced to remain ‘up a tiee 5 because this ridiculous
little dog is the overlord of the moment, or the ser-
vant of 1 lie present overlord, Man. But the ‘little
white naked man 5 is not much less ridiculous than
the little yapping white ball of a dog. Compared
with the beautiful or at least aristocratical birds
they have supersedrd, tins pair rut a poor figuie.
Biit they have the power: thev walk the earth. The
‘ consciousness 5 of the little white dog and the little
white man has been too much for the ‘consciousness 5
of the bird-world.

But the sympathy of the reader, in this play of
fantasia, it is cleaily intended, should be found en-
tirely on the side of I he birds. They arc the finer
beasts. And w lien in later chapters w r e arrive at the
Indians, and pluck out the ‘ dark 5 heart of then ant c-
dilu vian mystery, again we have a defeated race, but
a far finer and profoundcr one than that that has
superseded it. Chaplc r One, with the evolutionary
apologue, is a psychological introduction to a study
of the Indian, especially as contrasted with the
White mind.

191

PALEFACE

§ 8. Rare or Class Separation by means of ‘ Dimen-
sion . *

The situation m tins bnd-aud-man play is the
same situation as the White and Negro situation, the
Civilized man and the Savage situation, or the White
Overlord and subject asiatn faces situation. The
play is introdujcd, at the start of the book, to stress
and illustrate the situation to be considered and de-
picted later on, when the ‘ consciousness 5 of the Ind-
ian is to be pitted against the ‘consciousness* of the
White Man.

The monkey at a certain point comes on the scene.
He is a survival from another ‘dimension/ Mr.
Lawrence having introduced the mcxican machinery
of his ‘Suns/ thinks of the woid ‘Dimension’ as
being especially vague and picturesque, so he uses
that.

‘If you come to think of it/ he says, ‘when you
look at the monkey you are looking straight into the
other dimension . . . lie's in the same universe of
Space and Time as jou are. But there’s another
dimension/

This other dimension the thought or ‘conscious-
ness’ ot the monkev, of course.

‘lie’s different. There’s no rope of (‘volution
linking him to you. like a na\ el string ho! Be-
tween you and him there's a cataclysm and
another dimension. It \s no good. You can’t
link linn up. Never will. It ’s the other dimen-
sion.

‘He mocks at you and gibes at \ ou and imitates
you. Sometimes he is even more like you than
10‘2

RACE OR CLASS SEPARATION

you are yourself. He *s funny, and you laugh just
a bit on the wrong side of your face. It's the
other dimension.’

As between Dark and White, Indian and Euro-
pean, so between Man and Monkev, there is this ab-
solute gulf for Mr. Lawrence, like the cleavage be-
tween mathematical dimensions. ‘The Indian way
of consciousness is different from and fatal to our
w T ay of consciousness. . . . There is no bridge, no
canal of connection.’ For ‘Indian’ substitute
‘Parrots'* (why not with a capital P though — is that
because \vc are on the ground and the ‘parrot* up
aloft?) or Monkeys (why not a capital M, like Ind-
ian ?) and you have the same situation.

‘The Simian way of consciousness is different from
and fatal to our wiv,' etc., or ‘The Parrot's way of
consciousness,’ etc. That is the idea. — It is all ar-
ranged to heighten, or deepen, the separation be-
tween the Indian and the White — or the Bantu or
Hindu or the American Negro and the White

§ 9. An Imitation to Suicide add) eased to flu Whitt
Man .

The emotion throughout the book from which I
have quoted is the dogmatism of ‘revolution,' of
political revolution, to be precise. In contrast to
the White Overlord of this world in which we live,
Mr. Lawrence shows us a more primitive type of
‘consciousness,’ which has been physically defeated
by the White ‘consciousness,’ and assures us that
that defeated ‘consciousness’ is the better of the
two. But, since the ‘consciousness’ of the Indian

N 193

PALEFACE

is death to the ‘consciousness’ of the White, and
eventually, if it prevailed, to the White, physically,
as well, it is (however indirectly, and in the form of
an entertainment, a book of ‘fiction’) an invitation
to suicide addressed to the White Man. ‘Give up,
lav down, your White ‘‘consciousness,” ’ it says.
‘Capitulate to the mystical communistic Pan of the
Primitive Man! He Savage!’

Not only the opposition as between beasts and
men, or Black and White, is stressed (with, always,
the rebellious hypnotic accompaniment of the re-
volutionary drum, the primitive tom-tom, and al-
ways, that is the important thing, all the sympathy
of the reader engaged on the side of the oppressed
and superseded, the undei-dog — or, in the abo\c in-
stance, of the under-parrot); also we arc taken into
the dark-backward, to more exaggerated opposi-
tions. Once we ha\e got to the earliest birds, and,
most ancient of all the dispossessed, the serpent
(whom Mr. Lawrence sees biting his tail with an im-
memorial rage, and remarking, as lie glances malev-
olently up at Man, ‘I aaiII bruise Ins heel!’), beyond
this wo reach Hungs —beyond the eaihest amoeba.
Mr. LawTenee does not lak< us as fai as that. But
the philosophers who mainly influence him do.

This will be without mi a mug peiliups foi &omc
readers. Elsewhere I have shown how r ihal iiionI
fundamental of all revolutionary impulses Avorks,
too. Mr. Bertrand Russell, for instance, obedient to
Ins liberalist traditions, Avlueli he imports into his
physics, attempts to stir up the tables and chairs
against us and lead them in revolt against the over-
Aveemng overlord Man, avIio sits upon them and

194

AN INVITATION TO SUICIDE

uses them to write books at, without even asking
himself if they may not resent Ins behaviour, and
have their private thoughts about him — as he flings
himself down upon them, or rests his elbows upon
them and scratches Ins head.

The reason why I direct an adverse analysis
against this type of ‘revolutionary 5 emotional i tv, is
not, once more, because I believe that the White
Man as he stands to-day is the last word m animal
life, or m spiritual perfection, or that he is not
often quite as ridiculous as Mr. Lawrence’s parrots
would have him, and in any ease lie is engaged in
the road to the Melting-pot. I w ill not hen*
enumerate my reasons for hostility" where this re-
volutionary picture is concerned: 1 will say, only,
that most Aztecs are probably fairly bored with
being Aztecs. th«n the av< rage* IIopi. like the aver-
age eat, is rather negatively admirable and exceed-
ingly mechanical. that admiration for savages and
eats is really an expression ol the worst side of the
Machine Age — that Machine-Age Man is effusive
about them because Hie;/ me machines like lumself;
and Mr. Lawrence, at least, makes no pretence ol
admiring Ins savages because they ai< fice — they are
no longer for the cor.tc mporary rev olutionary ’ doc-
trinaire ‘the noble savage' in the rousseaiiesquc or
Fenimorc Cooper sense, at least not for the best
informed doctrinaire* and, lastly, w r hat sueli gospels
as those of Mr. Lawrence or of Sherwood Anderson
really amount to is an (.motional, and not quite dis-
interested, exaltation (indirectly) of the average
man 9 rhomme moyen sensuel — though m this ease
the average IIopi .

195

PALEFACE

I find the average White European (such as
C'hekov depicted) often exceedingly ridiculous, no
doubt, but much more interesting than the average
Hopi, or the average Negro. I would rather have
the least man that thinks, than the average man that
squats and drums and drums, with ‘ sightless,’ ‘ soul-
less’ eyes: I would rather have an ounce of human
‘ consciousness * than a universe full of ‘abdominal’
afflatus and hot. unconscious, ‘soulless,’ mystical
throbbing. — These few remarks must suffice to in-
dicate the orientation of my attitude in ibis part of
the debate.

I am now going over into the books of Sherwood
Anderson : and I assure you that, if you have fol-
lowed my analysis of the passages in Mornings in
Mexico, you will be in a much better position to
understand exactly what Mr. Anderson wants lo say
to you, at the same tunc that he spins you an ex-
cellent yarn.

I will begin with Dark Laughter (it pairs very well
with Mornings in Mexico , though, as a book, in
every w r ay inferior, and not, even a ‘good yarn’); and
I will take my leave of Mexico with a quotation de-
scribing the parrots in the patio mocking Kosahno
the Indian servant, with their ‘dark laughter.’ In
this way the two types of ‘dark laughter’ w r ill be
brought into the nearest possible contact, so that
any reader will be able to sec how verv near thev arc
together in spirit, as well.

The two parrots ‘a quite commonplace pair of
green birds’ sit or hang there, with their ‘flat dis-
illusioned eyes,’ their ‘heavy overhanging noses.’
their ‘sad old long-jowled faces,’ and watch the

196

‘SPRING WAS COMING ON FAST 5

ridiculous human beings underneath hour after hour,
bursting into mockery when tired of watching and
noting.

‘The parrots whistle cxacth like Rosahno, only
a little more so . . . Rosahno, sweeping the patio
with his twig Ibroom . . . covers himself more
and more wit h the cloud of his own obscurity. . . .
Up goes the wild, sliding Indian wdnstlc into the
morning. . .

§ 10 ‘ Spring was cowing on fas/ in Southern Indi-
ana. 9

Mr. Sherwood Anderson’s book. Dark Laughter ,
ends as follows:

‘Why couldn’t Fred laugh? He kept trying
but failed. In the road before the house one of
the negro women now laughed. There was a
shuffling sound. Tin' older negro woman tried to
quiet the jounger, blacker woman, but she kept
laughing the high shrill laughter of the negress.
“I knowed it, I knowed it, all the time I knowed
it,” she cried, and the* high shrill laughter ran
through the garden and into the room where Fred
sat upright and rigid in bed.

‘The End.’

The negresscs m Dark Laughter (they are the black
servants, and their mocking laughter usually rises
from the seullerv or kitchen) perpetually release
their ‘high shrill laughter of the negress,’ as they
observe with astonishment and derision the feeble-
ness and absurdity of their White Overlords up in
the parlour and out on the lawn . ‘ Up goes the wild,

197

PALEFACE

sliding Indian whistle in the morning’ from the
parrots (mocking the human beings in the court be-
neath, from which, owing to the ovcrlordship of the
human species, they are excluded, and forced to pass
their time hanging upon the trees) m Mr. Lawrence’s
Mornings in Mexico : and up goes the ‘high shrill
laughter’ of the negroes in Mi. Sherwood Anderson’s
Dark Laughter. The mgr esses m Mr. Anderson’s
book are in the role of the parrots in Mr. Lawrence’s
book: and the White Overlords in Mr. Anderson’s
book are in the role of Iloino Sapiens in Mj^Law-
mice’s book. Hut m Mr. Lawrence’s book, as in
Mr. Anderson’s, the White Overlord , rather than the
more abstract and fundamental Human Being, is
the true objective. And the Mexican Indian in
Mornings in Mexico plays the part (if the Negro m
Dark Laughter . I think this parallel can be missed
by no one So there is a good deal of truth, it seems,
in the ‘moron’ critic’s gibe, ‘Sherwood Lawrence,’
m Mr. Mencken's Americana .

Dark Laughter is the story of a journalist who,
having escaped from his wife in Chicago, gets em-
ployment in a small town in the South. He finds
his employer's wile (‘Fred’ «s the employer) attiac-
tive. She returns his love. She advertises for a
gardener. He take^ on 11 k* job After what seems
a very long time to the negro woman watching from
the kitchen and other menial vantage points, Fred's
Avife and the hind man go up to the bedroom of the
wife of Fred, the emplover, during Fred’s absence,
and the ‘deed of darkness’ is at last consummated.

‘A high-pitched negro laugh rang through the
house.’— End of Book Ten.

198

‘SPRING WAS COMING ON FAST’

That is the story. It proceeds to the mocking
accompaniment of the laughter of the negro servants
who find their masters a great joke. Fred’s wife
finds their laughter disquieting, but she dismisses it
as follows •

‘Soon it would be evening, the negro women
come home. . . . About the negro women it did
not matter. They would think fts tin ir natures
led them to think, feel as their natures led than to
feel. Von can’t ever tell what a negro woman
thinks or feels. They aie like children looking at
you. . . . White eyes, white teeth in a blown
face — laughter.’

But we, the readers of Dark Laughto , know what
the negresscs think more or less, for we have the
following enlightenment, winch resolves itself into a
sort of ‘Attabox * chorus- -the manlv straightfor-
ward advice of the divinely-inspired black child of
nature: ‘(Jet down to it ! (Jet to business' Hurry
up! Have lur quick! Don’t hang and moon about !’

‘Negroes singmg. —

** And the Lord said . .

II m i y, Hum ”

‘Negroes smgmg had sometimes a way of get-
ting at the ultimate truth of things. Two negro
womeu sang in the kitchen of the house. . . . The
two negro women in the house sang, did their
work, looked and listened.’

That is the situation. ‘ Spring w r as coming on fast
in Southern Indiana.’ But the specimen of the
White race depicted for us, called upon to be the

199

PALEFACE

‘man in the case 5 or third side to the triangle, and to
accommodate Fred’s wife, is slow, slow — as slow, in
fact, as the spring in southern Indiana is fast. And —
‘The two negro women m the house watched
and waited. Often they looked at edfcli other and
giggled. The air on the lull tej) was filled with
laughter — dark laughter. ‘Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!
Oh, Lord!’ <sne of them cried to the other. She
laughed — a high-pitched negro laugh.’

§ J 1 . ‘ Tot rents of Spring.'

It is the ‘Spring’ motif of Dark Laughter that Mr.
Ernest Hemingway has so ably caricatured in his
Tot rents of Spring. Just as in Mr. Lawrence’s
Mornings in Me.rico it is the Indian who takes the
place of the Negro, so in Mr. Hemingway’s book
Indian stands for Negro, and docs the ‘dark laugh-
ing.’ It opens with the ‘Spring’ motif of ‘Spring
was coming on fast in Southern Indiana,' as follows:

‘ Yogi Johnson stood looking out of the window
of a big pump-factory in Michigan. Spring would
soon be here. . . . Near Yogi at the next window'
but one stood Scripps O’Neil. . . . Scnpps O’Neil
had two WTves. As lie looked out of the window'
... he thought of both of them. One lived in
Mancelona and the other lived in i'etoskey. He
had not seen the one that lived m Mancelona since
last spring. He looked out at the snow-covered
pump-yard and thought what spring v ould mean.

‘Yogi Johnson opened the window carefully,
just a crack. Just a crack, that wasenough. Out-

200

‘TORRENTS OF SPJRING’

side in the yard the snow had begun to melt. A
warm breeze was Wowing. A Chinook wind the
pump fellows ealled it. The warm clnnook wind
came m through the window into the pump-fac-
tory. All the workmen laid clown their tools.
Many of them were Indians.

The foreman put Ins finger lA his mouth to
moisten it and held it up in the air. He felt the
warm breeze' on his finger. He shook his head
ruefully and smiled at the men, a tittle grimly per-
haps.

‘ “Well, it’s a regular clnnook, boys,” he said.
Silently for the most part, the workmen hung up
their tools.

‘Outside through the window came the sound
of an Indian w T nr-whoop/

That, compressed, is the first chapter of Mr. Hem-
ingway’s skit . Chapter Ele\ en shows Yogi Johnson
mortified by the ‘clnnook ’ and the sense of maleness
disgracefully dormant.

‘Yogi Johnson walked out of the workmen's
entrance of the pump-factory and down the street.
Spring was m the air

‘It ’s a real Chinook wind. Yogi thought. The
foreman did right to Jot the men go. It wouldn't
be safe keeping them in a day like this. Any-
thing might happen

‘Yogi was worried. There w r as something on
his mind. It was spring, there was no doubt of
that now r , and he did not w ant a woman. He had

201

PALEFACE

worried about it a lot lately. There was no ques-
tion about it. He did not want a woman. Ho
couldn’t explain it to himself. He had gone to
the Public Library and asked for a book the night
before. He looked at the librarian. He did not
want her. Somehow she meant nothing to him.
At the restaurant where he had a meal ticket he
looked hard ht the waitre ss who brought him his
meals. He did noi want her, either. He passed
a group of girls on their way home from High
School. He looked carefully at all of them. lie
did not want a single one. . . /

This painful situation is relieved at last by an
opportune stimulus turning up. This skit amus-
ingly pursues Mr. Sherwood Anderson through all
the phases of his stupidii\, especially stressing the
‘he-man ’ foolishness, the 1 bursting Spring ’ side of it.

Mr. Hemingway’s book, it is to be hoped, will put
a slop to Dark Laughter for the time, at least, on the
pari of Mr. Anderson. But some form or other of it
(and it becomes, with people more sophisticated than
Mr. Anderson, though otherwise much the same,
White laughter or nmt alion-‘ dark’) is sure toabound
and to multiply, since it has struck root in the anglo-
saxon mind: and one swallow, that is one Heming-
way, does not either make or mar an andersoman
spring — that teutonic zolaesque, meaty, maudlin,
sexish spring, heralding a communist summer — in
which, delirious with the ‘chmook,’ creatures are
rhetorically united to merge m the ‘dark’ juicy
matrix of Mother Nature in colossal, ‘direct,’ ‘soul-
less ’ abandons.

202

THE DREAD OF SEXUAL IMPOTENCE

§ 12. The Dread oj Si a nal Impotence .

Thk dread of sexual impotence, thoughts about
impotence, taunts about impotence, anxious appeals
to the 'chinook’ of such chceiiul and ‘manly*
material as this we many of the pages of Mr. Law-
rence and Mr. Sherwood Anderson composed Hut
there is a strain of frank and free •mode sty m Mr.
Anderson, whenever lie casts a glance m the direc-
tion of his own ‘ maleness.' ’ It lea\es much to lie
desired, m his eyes. Throughout his books Mr.
‘Anderson indeed is comparing himself unfav ourablv,
on the score of his 'manhood,' with other men (his
brother for instance, in the account of his child-
hood). In his Story-Tclln's Slot y, and indeed ever) -
where 'when he appears in a more or less veiled form,
these dark doubts beset him. The adulterous Bruce
m Dark Laughter feels that « real man would behave
quite differently from what he does m most things.
He would make less fuss, think about things less, act .
He is a bit of a poet, really, that is what it is, not
a man of action he says to himself. Perhaps Mr.
Anderson is over-mode si lie is probably as ‘manly *
as most men: but, however that may be, he is very
much puzzled and befuddled : he isa poor henpecked,
beFreuded, bewildered White, with a brand-new
‘inferiority complex.’

Mr. Lawrence is quite a different story. He is in
full and exultant enjoyment of a full battery of
‘complexes’ of every possible shade and shape of
sexiness. He possesses them en connoisseur , and
any new one that is suggested to him he receives
with an experienced delight . He is Thomme moyen

203

PALEFACE

sensuel gloating over the savouriness and variety of
1 he contemporary fare. Beside him Anderson strikes
one as a rather muddle-headed, clumsy, in some
ways very stupid sensationalist, doing his best for a
group of ‘dark ’ influences which he very imperfectly
understands, and often misinterprets.

§13. The Manner oj Mr. Anderson.

This is m no sense a piece of literary criticism, I
have remarked at the outset. But just as it was
necessary to say, when dealing with it from another
standpoint, that Mornings in Mexico was a work of
art, that it was worth reading on that score (pro-
vided you know how to laugh zvhilely at the ‘dark’
ideas, and dismiss them as the sticky, over-cxeitcd,
shallow stuff that they are), so it is perhaps as well
to say that Mr. Sherwood Anderson in Dark Laughter
writes in a manner that is really distracting. What
the manner is 1 don’t know: it may be a supremely
undeft mutation of Mr. Joyce. I will give you a
specimen of it.

‘He could hear himself saving it to Ilareourt
and others — smiling while he said it.

‘A brave man. What one does is to smile.

4 When one gets out of anything there is a sense
of relief. In war, m a battle, when one is v ounded
— a sense of relief. Now Fred would not have to
play a part an> more, be a man to some woman’s
woman. That would be up to Bruce.

‘In war, when you are wounded, a strange feel-
ing of relief. “That's done. Now get well.”

‘“She has gone to Chicago.” That Bruce!

204

THE MANNER OF MR. ANDERSON

Shoes twenty to thirty dollars a pair. A work-
man, a gardener. Ho, ho ! ” Or :

‘“Go softly. Don't hurry. What’s all the
shooting about l A little more white, a little more
white, graying white, muddy white, thick lips —
staying sometimes. Over we go!

‘Something lost too. The dance of bodies, a
slow dance. 4

‘Sleep again, white man. No hurry. Then
along e street for coffee and a roll of bread, five
cents. Sailors off ships, bleary-e> ed. Old nigger
women and white women going to market. They
know each other, nigger women, white women.
Go soft . Don’t hurry ! ’

It. is, m its least dextrous form, the chopped Mr.
Jingle style empkned by the author of Ulysse*, to
represent a person thinking: for instance (from
Ulysses, p. 281):

‘Damn good gm that was. — Fine* dashing young
nobleman. Good stock, of course. That ruffian,
that sham squire, with his violet gloves, gave him
away. Course they were on the wrong side. They
rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that is:
Ingram. They were gentlemen. lien Dollard
does smg that ballad touchingly. Masterly rendi-
tion.

“ At the siege of Ross did my father fall.”

4 A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay
passed, outriders leaping, leaping in their, m their
saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades.

205

PALEFACE

‘Mr. Kernan hurried forward, blowing furi-
ously. His Excellency ! Too bad! Just missed
that by a hair. Damn it ! What a pity!’

Here is Anderson again :

‘Once he had read a book of Z*>la, La Tare* and
later, but a shot l tune before he left Chicago, Tom
Wills had sluVn him a new book bv the Irishman
Joyce, Ulysses. There were certain pages. A
man named Bloom standing on a beach near some
women. A woman. Bloom's wife, m her bed-
room at home. The t bought s of the woman — her
right of animalism — all set down — minutely.
Realism m writing lifted up sharp something
burning and new like a raw sore. Others coming
to look at the sores.’

In The Enemy (No. 1 ) I said all t hat it is necessary
to say about this jerky sententious way of writing,
in dealing with Wush & Co. ‘Ulysses. There were
certain pages. A man named Bloom.' — ‘Others
coming to look at the sores.’ Pick up any monthly
magazine devoted tot he most popular sort of fiction,
and you will read ‘He flung out bitterly, in short
jagged sentences, as though it was painful for him to
speak : ‘ No good. All 1 over belw ecu ih. Things
might have been diflerent. It — Ah well, it’s too
late. Good-bve.” * This is intended to represent
a person labouring under an emotion too deep for
words. In the above passage of Mr. Anderson’s the
effect aimed at is a sort of bitter brevity — stuff flung
out carelessly by a man who m the opinion both of
the author and of himself is rather a line fellow.

206

THE MANNER OF MR. ANDERSON

The other passage 1 have quoted, beginning: ‘Go
softly. Don’t hurry!’ etc., represents a maddening
trick of many not a cry good writers to-day, who arc
too nervous and stupid to be simple, and who con-
sider that they have m some way modernized what
the> have to tell, flr that they have made its essential
banality more difficult to detect, bv breaking it up
into jerky statements, and stark Elliptical noisy
clauses. Also it poeticizes it. It is a very similar
sort of stupidity, or else deceit (according to who
employs it), to a\ erage free \ erse. If they are really
live vwres they say most of their sentences Ivvo or
three times over, like Miss Stein, occasionally, to
vary it a little, breaking off m the middle, or pun-
ning and fumbling incessantly with sonic word.

§ It. ‘ Hi uia! Heal ism mm the Sophistication of
Fiend .

Non , abov e, in the third passage by Mr. Anderson
that I have quoted, Zola is mentioned first, and
Joyce afterwards. Zola, standing for ‘brutal real-
ism,’ or for ‘animalism, like Joyce (in Mr. Ander-
son’s eyes) must bav e been always at the back of Ins
mind, I suspect. La Terre is surely a recognizable
forebear of Doth Laughter. All that is suetij, and
stupid — all the thick, fat dummheit — in this book, is
the authentic /.olaesque romance — Nature, sensu-
ality, hot lowering sulphurous Summers — -bursting,
sappy Springs; cows mooing for bulls, bulls bellow-
ing for cows, etc. etc. It all is there. But Freud
has come in, too. So when the hero is thinking
about las childhood, no one w r ill be surprised to lind

207

PALEFACE

that he first of all describes himself as a small boy,
sitting beside his mother on a river-steamer, and
‘sensing* that his mother was ‘lusting* for a young
man who stood near them with a dark moustache;
and that then he half withdraws the young man with
the dark moustache, and half-exoilerates Ins mother
from these fresh sensations, and takes the blame
himself. It was he , the little boy, who in reality
(the authors dutiful eye on Dr. Freud) was ‘lusting ’
for his mother.

‘That young man Bruce had once seen on an
Ohio river- boat when he was a boy taking a trip
up river, with Ins father and mother. ... It would
be an odd turn of the nnnd if the young man had
never existed — it a boy’s mind had invented linn.
Suppose he had just in\ ented lnm later — as some-
thing — to explain Ins mother to himself, as a means
forgetting close to the Ionian, Ins mother.’

So much for the usual incest. Next I will take
the mystical communism. (Not that Freud’s teach-
ing is not an integral part of eommuinsm, too, for
it is Hie psychology appropriate to a highly coni-
mumzcd patriarchal society in which l he family and
its close relationship is an intense obsession, and the
obscene familiarities of a closeiy packed communal
sex-hfe a family-joke, as it were. It is a psychology
foreign to the average European and his individual-
istic life. The mccst-thcme is inappropriate to the
european communities, on whom no severe religious
restrictions of race or of caste have been imposed.)
So by ‘communism’ here I mean what currently we
mean when we say communism. Mr. Anderson is

208

‘BRUTAL REALISM*

describing happenings on the Mississippi before the
coming of industrialism, and especially he is glori-
fying the negroes.

4 black mysticism — never expressed except

m song or in the movements of bodies. The bodies
of the black workers belonged to each other as the
sky belonged to the river. ... *

‘Brown bodies trotting, black bodies trolling.
The bodies oj all the men running up and down the
landing-stage were one body . One could not be dis-
tinguished from another They were lost in each
othn-- Could the bodies oj people be so lost , m each
other j etc.

He apostrophizes american painters, and calls
them ‘silly American painters!’ He says that silly
painters ‘chase a Gauguin shadow to the South Seas.’
Why don’t they stay at home and paint the Ameri-
can Negro? he asks. If they v ant to lind romance —
mystical romance, or ‘black mysticism,’ here it is at
their doors.

‘The skm colors brown, golden yellow, reddish
brown, purple brown. Where the sw r eat runs
down high brown backs the colors come out and
dance before the eyes. . . . Flash that up, jou
silly painters . . . song-tones in words, music m
w r ords — m colors too.’

§ 15. The Black Cormnhmsm of Anderson.

I will now quote successively those passages in
Bark Laughter that contain the gist of Anderson’s
whitmanesque message of Black and White brother-

209

o

PALEFACE

hood, or rather of Black-worship, and religious sub-
mission to the Black-idea, as being a more primitive
one than the White.

The hero is going down the Mississippi. The fol-
lowing passages represent the cogitations of this
figure (expressing, presumably, many of the ideas
peculiar to Fr. Anderson), upon those amencan
problems connected with race.

'People talked with a slow drawling speech,
niggers were hoeing cotton, other niggers fished
for catfish in the river.

‘The niggers were something for Bruce to look
at, think about. So many black men slowly
growing brown. Then would come the light
brown, Ihe velvet browns, Caucasian features.
The brown woman tending up to the job — getting
the race lighter and light er. Soft southern nights,
warm dusky nights. Shadows flitting ... in dusky
roads . . . soft voices laughing, laughing. . .

This quotation has its ironical significance: for it
shows the ‘noble savage’ (as represented by the
amencan Negro) trying to get a white skin as quickly
as possible, at the same time as the White is begin-
ning to hide his head m shame at the thought that
his is not a black, yellow or brown one.

‘Was there such a thing as an American ? Per-
haps Bruce was the thing himself. He was reck-
less, afraid, bold, shy. . . .

‘Could you ever really know ... a nigger?

‘Consciousness of brown men, brown women,
coming more and more into american life — by
that token coming into him. too.

210

THE BLACK COMMUNISM OF ANDERSON

‘More willing to conic, more avid to come, than
any Jew\ etc. . . . Standing laughing — coming
by the back door — with shuffling feet, a laugh — a
dance in the body.

‘Facts established would ha\e to bo recognized
sometime. . . /•

‘Thinking of mggeis! What >orf of business is
that ? IIow come v Northern /neir so often get
Ugly when they think of niggers, or they get senti-
mental. 1 Give pity where 1 none is needed. The
men and women of the South understand better,
maybe. ‘Oh, hell, don’t get fussy! Let things
flow! Let us alone! We Ml float! 5 Brown blood
flowing. White blood flow mg, deepmer flow ing.

‘A slow- da nee, music, ship’s cotton, corn, coffee 1 .
Slow’ lazy laughter of niggers. Bruce jomcni-
bercel a line he had once s ecu written by a negro.
“Would white pent ewer know why my people
walk so softly and laugh at sunrise?” 9

So : “ silly ainenean painters’ chasing ‘a Gauguin
shadow to the South Seas*’ No! ‘Across the street
. . . a nigger woman ol Iwent j arises at live and
stretches her arms. . . Nigger girl with slendei,
flexible body.’ — Thai's the stufl! Why go to the
South Seas v ‘Fheh that up, \ou silly painters. . . .
Song-tones . . . m colours/ ‘Hot days. Sw r eet
Mama! 5

§ 16. ‘ JVhaf ho! Smelling Strangeness'

Or let 9 s return to ‘that Gauguin ’ — he is, after all,
the goods — though he chd go to the South Seas,
1 Cf quotation fiom T) II. Law rent e, p 174
211

PALEFACE

whereas for half the money he could have stopped
right here in New Orleans, and ‘flashed up 5 just as
good a brand of Darkic (if that was all he wanted). —
‘Do you remember the night when that Gauguin
came home to his little hut and there, m the bed,
was the slender brown girl waitirig for him ? Better
read that book. “Noa-Noa,” they call it. Brown
mysticism in* the walls of a room , in the hair — of a
Frenchman, m the (yes of a brown girl. Noa-Noa.
Do you remember the sense of strangeness? French
painter kneeling on the floor m the darkness, smell-
ing the strangeness. The brown girl smelling the
strangeness. Love? What lio* Smelling strange-
ness.’

Love, What ho ! it is indeed : for it smells strange -
ness, which is the essence of romantic love, as of
('very other form of romance. We here get the full
flavour of the clumsy and rather drab exoticism of
Mr. Anderson. The ‘brown mysticism’ of Gau-
guin’s dusky mistresses lie wishes to transport into
the Mississippi, and create a Noa-Noa upon its flood.
And Niggerland shall henceforth be their Paeitic, for
those inland populations that have never seen the
sea, and each manbea Gauguin in lus own backyard.

§ 17. The 4 Poetic 9 Indian

Them: is an important feature of the teaching of
Mr. Sherwood Anderson with which lam much in
sympathy. This he inherits too from Walt Whit-
man. But it is flatly contradicted by the commun-
ism of the rest of his work. 1 refer to Ins eloquent
opposition to the influences of industrial life — to the
killing ot life and natural beauty that that entails.

212

THE ‘POETIC’ INDIAN

Part of Dark Laughter is devoted to a eulogy of
life on the great river, Mississippi, and generally of
the lands through which it flows.

‘A warm rich land of growth — trees growing
rank — weeds and corn growing rank. The whole
Middle American Empire — swept by frequent and
delicious rains, great iorests, prairies on which
early spring flowers grow' like a carpet — land of
many risers running dosvn to the brown slow
strong mother of ris'ers, land to live in, make love
m, danee m. Once the Indians danced there,
made feasts there. Tlie\ r threw poems about like
seeds on a wand. Names of ris’ers, names of
tow'ns. Ohio! Illinois! Keokuk! Chicago!
Illinois ! Michigan ! ’

'New York’ and ‘Boston,’ it is Irue. might appear
intensely romantic to a Blaekfoot or a Mohican: and
they may have remarked to each other, among their
wigwams, sharpening their tomahawks, ‘These
Whites throw poems about like seeds m the wind!
Boston! Brotf'im'illr 1 llow beautiful!’ Still !
suppose there is sonic abstract superiority in the
mdian names set beside the anglo-suxon ones. I
am reminded of Matthew Arnold’s contrasting of
the place-names for which the ‘creeping Saxon ’ was
responsible, and those names originating with the
Celts.

‘As the saxon names of places, with the pleas-
ant, wholesome smack of the soil in them —
Weatherfield, Thaxted, Shalford — are to the Celtic
names of places, with their penetrating lofty
beauty — Velmdra, Tyntagel, Carnarvon — so is

213

PALEFACE

the homely realism of german and norse nature to
the fairy-like loveliness of eeltie nature.’

So, if Mr. Anderson happens to be of ‘celtic 5
origin, he can match Carnarvon with Keokuk, Tyn-
tagel with Chicago, and Vclindra Villi Michigan, and
hold his head up once more!

§18. The Mississippi and ihc Manufacturers.

Bruce, the hero of Doth Laughter , having torn
lumself free from domestic life in Chicago,

‘spent nearly two months ... in getting down
river to New Orleans. . . . Nearly every man
who lived long in the Mississippi Valley had that
notion tucked way in linn somewhere. The great
riser, lonely and empty now, was, in some queer
way, like a lost river. It had come to represent
t he lost youth of Middle America perhaps. Song,
laughter, profanity, the smell of goods, dancing
mggers — life everywhere! Great gaudy boats on
a ri\er, lumber rafts floating down, voices across
the silent nights, song, an empire unloading its
wealth on the face of the waters of a river! . . .
In its youth the Middle West had breathed with
the breathing of a river.

‘The iactory men were pretty smart, weren't
lhey v First thing they did when they got the
chance was to choke off the river, take the rom-
ance on I of commerce. They may not have in-
tended anything of the sort, romance and com-
merce were just natural enemies. They made the
river as dead as a door-nail with their railroads
and it has been that w r ay ever since.

214

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE MANUFACTURERS

‘Rig river, silent now. Creeping slowly down
past mud banks, miserable little towns, the river
as powerful as ever, strange as ever, but silent
now, forgotten, neglected. A few tugs with
strings of barges. No more gaudy boats, pro-
fanity, song, gamblers, excitement, life.

‘When he was working his way down river,
Bruec Dudley had thought that* Mark Twain,
when he went back to visit the river after the rail-
roads had choked to death the river life, that
Mark might have wntt en an epic then. He might
have written of song killed, of laughter killed, of
men herded into a new age of speed, of factories,
of swift, fast-running trains.’

When wc in Europe* discuss America, w r e picture
it only as this ‘soulless’ (to use Lawrence’s w r ord in
another connection) desolation of the Machine Age.
It typifies to the European the Robot, Machine-life,
m excelsis. We forget, or we have no means of
knowing, that the more intelligent American sees
this, ‘sees through it/ as well as we do; and happen**
to hate it with far moie intensity, sometimes, than
is found with us.

Earlier m this essay I have remarked that I w r as
agreeably surprised to find those people I talked to
m New York about t hat v cry remarkable city (which
I was seeing for th* first time) expressed nothing
but a veiled or open dislike for its famous colossal-
ness. They looked pained or bored if I drew their
attention to a particularly beautiful skyscraper. It
was like talking to a farmer about the beauty of the
scenery. And m american books you meet every-

215

PALEFACE

where the same impatience and contempt for all this
commercial display of power, scale and speed. No-
where in the Old World have I ever met such a
thorough aversion for all the things that we regard
as typically ameriean, and which the American of
the popular imagination is always supposed to be
boasting about.

§19. Passages from ‘Poor While.'

That Mr. Anderson realizes that in this attitude
towards the staggering material achievements of his
country, he, and the many Americans of his way of
thinking, are rebels against an entire scheme of
things — the whole of our ‘ainericanized’ civilization,
in fact — is clear from what happens in his book.
Poor White. That is the story of a child of Poor
Whites on the Mississippi, who discovers a genius
for engineering. His inventions are highly profit-
able to himself and those with whom he is associ-
ated, and the town where he is settled rapidly turns
from a village into a big factory town. We have a
picture of the struggle between the old order and
the new — between the craftsman and handiworkcr,
and the new industrialism.

But eventually Hugh the inventor begins turning
against his own mechanical-toys, and even loses his
power of inventing these. But by this reaction, Mr.
Anderson says, he is still in advance of his fellows.
He has become conscious ; before he bad been un-
conscious (that is certainly a step in advance : but
does it tally with Mr. Anderson’s teaching else-
where?).

210

PASSAGES FROM POOR WHITE

‘He had been an unconscious worker , a doer, and
was now becoming something else. The time of
the comparatively simple st niggle with definite
things, with iron and steel, had passed. He
fought ... to understand himself, to relate him-
self with the lift about him. The poor white, son
of the defeated dreamer of the river, who had
forced himself m advanec of Ins ftnow’s along the
road of meehameal development, was still m ad-
vanee of his fellows of the growing Ohio towns.

‘ The struggle he was making was Ihe shuggle his
fellows of another generation would erne and all have
lo make. . . .

‘There w r as unconscious defiance of a whole
civilization m Hugh’s attitude. . . .’

The heroine ol the story, Clara, hates her hus-
band’s and father's machinery even more than
Hugh (as far as we are allowed to follow r him) comes
to do. There is a sensational scene m which a
harness-maker has cut a man’s throat for importing
mac h i n e-made harness into the town, and forcing
linn to sell it.

‘In her mind’ (in Clara's) ‘the harness-maker had
come to stand for all the men and women in the
world who were m secret revolt against the absorp-
tion of the age m machines and the products of
machines. He had stood as a protesting figure
against wdiat her father had become.’ A little earlier
Clara's father, Tom, has turned up, m a state of
great excitement, w r ith the first motor car to be seen
in that part of the country. He takes his daughter
and son-in-law for a drive, Clara sitting behind, and

217

PALEFACE

Hugh beside Tom . Here arc* two passages, recount-
ing this event.

‘As the daughter sat in the motor listening to
the shrill voice of the father, who now talked only
of the making of machines and money, that other
man talking softly m the moonlight as the horse
jogged slowly along the dark road seemed very
far away. *A11 such men seemed \ery far away.
‘‘Everything worth while is very far away,” she
thought bitterly. “The machines men are so in-
tent on making have carried them very far from
the old sweet things.”

‘The motor flew along the roads and Tom
thought of his old longing to own and drive* fast
racing horses. “I used to be* half crazy to own
fast horses,” he shouted to Ins son-in-law. “I
didn’t do it, because owning fast horses meant a
waste of money, but it was m my nnnd all the
time. 1 wanted to go fast : faster than any one
else.” In a kind of ecstasy he gave the motor
more gas and shot the speed up to fifty miles an
hour. The hot, summer air, fanned into a violent
wind, whistled past his head. “Where would the
damned race horses be now,” he called, “where
would your Maud S. or your J.l.C. be. trying to
catch up with me m tin.-* car? ”

‘Yellow wheat fields and fields of young corn,
tall now and in the light breeze that was blowing
whispering in the moonlight, flashed past. . . .’

‘“You don’t know anything about it, and I
don’t want you should talk, but there are new
things coming to Bidwell,” he added. “When I

218

PASSAGES FROM POOR WHITE

was in Chicago last month I met a man who has
been making rubber buggy and bicycle tires. I ’m
going m with him and we ’re going to start a plant
lor making automobile-tires right in Bidwell. The
tire business is bound to be one of the greatest
on earth and*thcy ain’t no reason why Bidwell
shouldn’t be the biggest tire center^ or known in
the world.” Although the ear now ran quietly,
Tom’s \oice again Ik came shrill. “There’ll be
hundreds of thousands of ears like this tearing
over '‘very road in America,” he declared. “ Yes,
sir, they will; and if I calculate 1 lght Bidwell ’ll be
the great tire town of the world.” ’

§ ‘JO. The Contradiction between the Communist Emo-
tionality of Mr Anderson and his impulses to
counter the Machine Age.

It is plain from the quotations I have given that
Mr. Anderson is (whatever the origin of those im-
pulses may Ik* wilh him) insurgent or reactionary
where the greal mailed list of Big Business is con-
cerned- -rebellious to all that giant orthodoxy of
mercantile collectivism which is pulverizing th< life
of the contemporary world, in herding people m
enormous mechanized masses. Any independent
intelligence*, standing aside from the two great hos-
tile sects of Capitalism and Communism, must de-
plore in the* latter, side by side with its doctrine of
deliverance, the fact that its Promised Land looks
too, in the distance, so like the film Metropolis .

Mr. Anderson no doubt would be incapable of
seizing the fundamental liaison of many of his

219

rALEFACE

favourite ideas with the materialist aspect of the
communist doctrine Where he bestows upon Clara,
m Poor While , a lesbian chum, and makes her re
spond to her life experience a la garQOvne; or, again,
where he advertises in Dark Laughter a passion, as
a child of six, for his mother (so conforming to the
incest motif of Freud j, he is far from realizing, I
should say, where these ideologic boriowmgs would
lead him, had he the curiosity to track them back
to their true sources. All this is hidden from Mr.
Anderson : but that is not for a moment to say that,
had lie the energy or intelligence to track the prin-
cipal and most picturesque notions by which he has
been influenced back where they most truly belong,
he would not be even better pleased with himself
than now he is. Nor do I saj r that, swiftly navigat-
ing the broad stream of influences (to which he, m
common with everybody else to-dav, has been sub-
jected) up to its fountain head, and finding himself
at last m the company of early Generals of the
Society of Jesus, or Grand Inquisitors, closeted w T ith
the chiefs of the Templars or passing into the shadow 7
of the Star Chamber, or findmg himself at length
face to face with the learned priestly rulers of East-
ern theocracies, such for instance as the priests of
Sais. who told Solon that tin Greeks were only
ignorant children, hi would not Ik* m better intel-
lectual company than ever lie has been m the Middle
West. What of course I really mean is that he, him-
self, w T ould certainly be worse off with those master
minds. But lus interests are ours, up to a point,
and it is perhaps as well not to allow' Palefaces like
Mr. Anderson to make too many mistakes and to

220

MR. ANDERSON AND THE MACHINE AGE

arrive at the Melting-pot practically Black. Muddle
and blindness is bad, encountered in the spokesmen
of our race: for if such men as Shaw, Russell, Law-
rence and so on, here m England and Anderson
amongst the best-known dozen m America are not
our spiritual spokesmen, ihen who are? Not Sen-
ator Borali or Mr. Churchill, 1 suppose: nor Dean
Inge nor Rabin Wise. Once the deep cloud of lgnor-
auce and misunderstanding were dispelled, it would
be found that many people w T itli even more enthu-
siasm would stick to their present beliefs. Others,
how’ever, would abandon them. We should all
know' where wc w r ere, then, the issues would be stark
and plain, and the argument would move more
rapidly to its conclusion — smoothly, more satisfac-
torily. to the best of all possible Melting-pots.

So I think that the emotional insurgcnce of Mi .
Anderson against the conditions of Big Business is
flatly contradicted by his communism. I w r ill repeat
the quotation where he is exclaiming about the
peculiar solidarity of the negro workers.

‘The bodies of all the men running up and down
the landing-stage were one body. One could not
be distinguished from another. They w r erc lost
in each other. Could the bodies of people be so
lost in each other? 5

The answer of course to that last question (the
exclamations of Mr. Anderson have usually the form
of questions) is ‘ Yes, they can. It is quite easy for
White Men, as w ell as Negroes, to become Mass men ,
“not to be distinguished from one another. 55 In-
tensive Industrialism is able to achieve that for y r ou

221

PALEFACE

whoever the bosses.’ But Intensive Industrialism
is what Mr. Anderson never ceases to fulminate
against. And his reasons for hating it .appear to be
precisely that it does merge people m the way that
he exultantly describes the Negro workers as being
merged, m one featureless anonymous black organ-
ism, like a gigantic centipidc. So in the same
breath he is gioomv and joyful over the same phe-
nomenon! The black skin appears to have the
power of disguising the reality from him. A sub-
sidiary confusion is caused, in this instance, by the
fact that the mechanical Negroes are given as a
characteristic feature of the free natural life of the
Mississippi before the arrival of Industrialism, which
put an end to the mechanical trotting Negroes —
“running up and down the landing-stage . . . lost
in each other.’

§ 21. While ' SenlinienUilih / '

At the beginning of Section I1T, J have quoted
Mr. 1). If. Lawrence, where hi' says, ‘It is almost
impossible for the white people to approach the
Indian without either sentimentality or dislike.’

And I remarked that Mr. Lawrence showed him-
self to be a flood Whih M«n m that respect: for
there is a great deal of ‘ sentimentality ’ about the
Hopi in the books of Mr. Lawrence.

Where the amencan Negro is concerned it is the
same thing with Mr. Sherwood Anderson, although
it is a different sort of 'sentimentality.' In any
book of Jus you pick up you will find, wherever
Negroes occur, that they are used to score off the

WHITE ‘SENTIMENTALITY’

White; or arc compaied, with considerable ’senti-
ment,’ very favourably with the White ‘Over-
lord.’

This invariable attitude on the part of Mr. Ander-
son is partly the effect of fashionable primitivist
doctrine: and it partly the revolutionary, ‘radical,*
impulse at work. The Negro is ‘kept m his place,'
is ‘looked down on,’ is used as a hireling, and
laughed at, by the arrogant Lord of Creation, the
White Man. Mr. Anderson has learnt his little
‘radical’ lesson. So, wherever the Negro occurs,
and he occurs fairly often in lus books, he is made to
take the White down a peg or two. What blissful
ignorance of really dark realities is displayed by
these old-fashioned habits — old-fasluoned because
they came into existence amongst and were proper
to conditions that ha\e passed! There arc many
duskier things than the big black honest open face
of the poor Negro.

§ 22. ‘/ wish I ti as a Niggci.'

T will give a few lurt her illustrations of roman-
cing about Negroes. Take, lor example, the first
storv, ‘I Want to Know \Vh> in The Triumph of the
Egg. It is a story of the passion for horse -racing —
it is, as it happens, a very, very emotional, even, in-
deed, a blubbering story. It is, in fine, the triumph
of the Egg — in the overtaxed soul of Mr. Anderson.
Negroes are ‘flashed up' here and there.

‘Often when I think about it ... I wish 1 was
a nigger. It *s a foolish thing to say . . . I can’t
help it.’

223

PALEFACE

Three other boys and himself run away from
home and go to the races.

‘Wc got into Saratoga as l said at night and
went to the track. Bildad (a Negro) fed us up.
He showed us a place to sleep in liay over a shed
and promised to keep still. Niggers are all right
about things like that. They won’t squeal on
you. Offen a white man you might meet, when
you had run away from home like that, might,
appear to be all right and give you a quarter or
half dollar or something, and then go right and
give you away. White men will do that, but not
a nigger. You can trust them. They are square
with kids. I don’t know why.’

I have said in my introduction that I am propos-
ing to you an entirely new system of feeling and
thought, a new way of looking at the world in which,
since the War, we have been called upon to live. ‘ I
Want to Know' Why’ is a good thing to exercise
jour teeth on if you arc giving this system a trial.

But let us put under the microscope the two
passages 311st quoted, to start with: afterwards the
rest of the story can he associated with our results,
derived from the scrutiny of that particular portion.

Mr. Anderson of course is writing to start with in
the breathless, unpunctuated jargon of childhood:
for he is a little simple child once more, running
away from home. (Often in The Triumph of the
Egg he take s many lea \ cs out of the book of ‘ Trudy '
Stein, it is worth noting, for it is, as I have said, the
Triumph of the Egg right enough.) So when he
says ‘I wish I was a nigger,’ we should not be justi-

224

4 THE IvID s

ficd in paying much attention to that, if it wcfc not
that elsewhere, when no longer the irresponsible
truant child, he displays just the same proclivities
where Negroes are concerned. lie is always, in one
form or another, ‘ w i slung he w as a nigger.’ So it is
‘a loolisli tlnng fro saj.’ It is a foolish thing, all
right, and Mr. Anderson, in one way or another, is
always saying it.

§ 23. 'The Kid:

In the second passage 1 have quoted, Bildad, the
kind dusky Uncle Tom, with the Dickens tear in the
corner of Ins pathetic rolling benevolent black eye,
gives the little runaways lots to eat; and then lie
bustles off and finds the dear little chaps (m the tiue
Dickens manner) a eosv little hiding place.

k Ali, the good kind Nigger! Would that those
hard unsympathetic White Men were as good to
4 kids” as that! (live me a Nigger e\er\ time — it
you ’re a little mnoec nt kid (as I am for the moment,
in misty-eyed memory) (making Ihr hard, cruel,
White law% which foibids you to run aw r ay from
home, and which imposes its disgusting White disci-
pluie upon you. Ah, if the White Momnier and Pop
only could understand ! As t he Nigger understands !
The Child is a thing that requires understanding!
He is a w T ild, rousscauesque thing, a fragment of
wild Nature. He hates discipline ! He w r ants to run
wild! The Nigger is nearer to Nature: he under-
stands the Child. Up, the Nigger! Down, the White
Mamma! And especially, Down the White Papa ! *
That is the andersoman idea. The Nigger and the

OO'?

*IM J

p

PALEFACE

Children are kindred souls — both are giggling, emo-
tional — laughing and crying — Children of Nature.

‘ you know how a nigger can giggle and laugh

and say things that make you laugh. A white man
can’t do it. . . .’ ( Triumph of the Egg, p. 10).
Only the adult White is no sport,* is against Nature l
Tt is he that has invented discipline ! It is the White
that spoils % e verytlung ! So, down with discipline 1
Down with the White! Let Children and Niggers,
moist -eyed and hand in hand, run wild and free!

That is the andersonian message: and when we
have wiped our eyes and put our handkerchiefs away
(still sniffling a little, and still red around the eyes)
— if we ever do that at all, of course! — let us open
our little peepers and see what has been happening
to us all. We ’ve been ha\ ing such a hell of a good
time, such a lovely luscious cry, and so much luxuri-
ous sob-stuff has been our bath for so long (not only
as readers of Anderson, but as readers of so many
books), that to be a little inflexible, and on the cold
side, will be a change, at least. Suppose we begin
to do what — in such a radiant, free and highly emo-
tional world — wc should never never do at all : I
mean, tall into that beastly condition, so abliorzent
to all emancipated, i'recdom-lovmg Children of
Nature, to all Behavioun-t'., to all Beigsomans, Ges-
talt ites and Emergent Evolutionists — that condi-
tion we call (as it were m mockery of our ‘reflexes’)
‘reflection.’ How would that new state of muid
affect our view of the above passages in ‘ I Want to
Know Why,’ indeed of the whole of that piece?

First, we should undoubtedly say to ourselves
that it was a little late in the da}’ to indulge in Uncle

226

‘THE KID *

Toma Cabin emotions. Things have changed too
much throughout the world for the ‘ conquering*
White Man to allow himself, without appearing
ridiculous, those sentimental superiorities. It is
even an offence to our Black brothers. On the other
hand, the White t)verlord (not being an ‘overlord’
at all of course) can no longer strictly speaking afford
the luxury of remaining a ‘kid.’ That is no good:
the World is no longer his nursery, or happy hunting
ground, so Ins days of charming Childhood, it should
be recognized by him, a^e at an end. There arc
many people, of course, who arc only too anxious to
encourage him to remain a child. On all sides he is
encouraged to remain very, very ‘young’ and harm-
lessly ‘boyish,’ not to trouble his little head with
thinking, not to allow any anxiety to come into
his eternally young and divinely irresponsible life.
‘Ju&t have a good time: just be a “kid” — we’ll do
the rest, we’ll look after the world!* his mentors
practically say to him. 4 You are so young: much
too young to do anything but enjoy yourself — at our
expense! Don’t stmt j ourself! The mortgage will
never have to be paid!’ Soothed and flattered,
Little Master Paleface simpers and archly contorts
himself, and turns to the toys provided for him —
more insidious, < ertainly, than bread and circuses —
by Ins indulgent guides, philosophers and friends.
Some of his toys are getting very noisy and danger-
ous. ‘Why not have another little War with the
next nursery?’ Ins mentor suggests. ‘Just one!*
Little Master Paleface frowns, pouts, and blows
out his chest.

If we were acquainted with these backgrounds —
227

PALEFACE

and I am imagining us m order to represent us as
reflecting, possessed of such knowledge — the senti-
mental blandishments of Mr. Anderson, and his
Unelc Tom up-to-date, would enable us verv quickly
to dispose of all traces of our emotion. We should
not develop a great power of sympathy for the glee-
ful alliance ol ‘the Kid' with ‘the Nigger.’ The
age-war, or more properly the war between the
master and pupil, or between father and son, so ably
fomented m Paleface society as a part of the revolu-
tionary programme, would not tin ill us so very
much. We should know, for instance, that if the
Nigger helped the insurrectionary ‘Kid’ against Ins
family, it might conceivably be because the Nigger,
although not a bad sort, perhaps, might all the same
be rather glad to cause a little anxiety and discom-
fort to the adult White, who lorded it over lnm
rather brutally. All Bildads, bearing m mind what
the circumstances are, must be potential insurgents,
and must have some sympathy with revolt m any
form. We should know' (if w e w ere acquainted with
the backgrounds specified above) that the order of
the White World was far from perfect, but that it
was nevertheless a form of order that should not
utterly be allow r ed to decay before w t c reached the
Melting-pot; that discipline is the enemy of the
‘good tune/ certainly, whether it is discipline m a
fannl\, army, school, or state: but that no good
time, even, ever was secured for very long by a
studied neglect of disgusting disciplines. All these
elementary, universal, homely truths, from w r hich
there is no escape for successful life, and which arc
the first conditions of organization or ‘mind/ as op-

228

‘THE KID *

posed to chaos or ‘sensation,’ we are supposing that
we possess as a matter of course. Then, cerlnmh ,
after a good diekensian cry o\ er the kind loyal Black
Man, shielding and caring for the runaway ‘kid/ Mr.
Anderson’s eloquent appeals to our hearts and senses
would begin to gure place to something disagieeable
and mathematical, almost like the meter of a taxi.

There is, of course, some exaggeration in this
analysis: but it is only by ovir-stressing the signi-
ficance of such material that the true meaning of all
such wilting can be laid ban tor the inattentive
reader. The reader must lie induced somehow to
contract the habit of muling between the lines.
That is really the wav to lead such stulf, ll you must
read it (and masses of people do), the way I have
just bc< n reading it for \ ou. K\ t n if sometimes vou
are mistaken m \oui enthusiastic detective aetmty,
that is better than alwa\s accepting blindly, as pur-
poseless ‘cnt< itamim nt,’ what so often is saturated
with some political philosophy or other — even un
known to its author and evtn (d a good philosophy)
interpreted, it may be, upside down.

What Mi. Anderson ivauls to kn ore why about is,
however, not anything to do with White and Black
questions, nor is it part of the ‘Fathers-and-sons,’
the Kid m.sMA Uud, i evolutionary situation. It i->
the ‘sex-war,’ that other fundaiiKiital sub - 1 war/
that provides the material for the mam theme of the
story. And the homo-sexual seiisibildy is, I think,
brought in to reinforce tins part of the business.

When the runaway ‘kid’ gets home, ‘Mother
jawed and cried, but Pop didn’t say much.’ Pop
was perhaps a rather cowed type of Poor White, or

229

PALEFACE

perhaps he had no desire to add the burdens of the
Kid — Pop war to those of the sex-war of Man —
Wife. 4 1 told everything we done except one thing.
I did and saw that alone. That what I 5 m writing
about.’ — It is about that he ‘wants to know why.’

What happened apparently *hat ‘the Kid’
(who was sixteen) fell iu love with a trainer called
Jerry Tilford. But prior to lus infatuation for Mr.
Tilford, lie evidently fell head over ears in love with
the horse trained by Tilford — ‘Sunstreak.’

‘There' isn’t anything as sweet as that horse.
... I was standing looking at that horse and
aching. In some way, I can’t tell how, I knew
just how Sunstreak felt inside . . . he w r as just a
raging torrent inside. ... I could just in a w r ay
see right inside him. He was going to do some
awful running and I knew it ... I knew it and
Jerry Tilford his trainer knew.’

So we arrive at his yearning emotions as regards
the trainer. Anything that interests him ‘the Kid’
seems to translate immediately into the hot, ‘ach-
ing ’ terms of sexual love He has a permanent
lump m Ins throat, 'the Kid.’ ‘If my throat hurts
and it’s hard for me to swallow,’ he tells us, why
then the horse he has these sensation^ about i< a
good horse. It is the same more or less about
trainers. A good tiainer, or I suppose a kind Nigger,
affects him in the same' way. It w'ould require the
tearful art of a Charlie C haplin to give us a proper
version of this ‘Kid’; only Charlie w r ould have to
throw in a ‘Nancy 5 touch to get the emotional im-
pact required.

230

‘THE KID’

‘I knew it and Jerry Tilford, liis trainer, knew.
I looked up and then that man and I looked into
each other’s eyes. Something happened to me.
I guess I loved the man as much as I did the horse
because he knew that T knew. ... I cried and
Jerry Tilford had a shine in his eyes.’

The orgasm continues: but the point of ‘the
Kid's’ story lies in the fact that the orgasm js trans-
ferred from the horse to the trainer. * I watched the
race calm. . . You expect the crisis of the orgasm
to occur, of course, when Sunstrcak passes the win-
ning post. But nothing of the sort happens. All
is suddenly ‘calm.’ That is the authors little sur-
prise.

‘A funny thing hud happened to nie. I was
thinking about Jerry Tilford, the trainer ... all
through the mcc I liked him that afternoon
e\cn more than I ever liked my own father. I
almost foigot the horses thinking that way about
him. ... It was the first lime 1 ever felt for a
man like that.’

So Jern Tilford is his first love. — The race-meet -
mg ends. — But ‘the Kid s’ passion for Jerry Tilford
does not die down.

‘After the race that night I cut out from Tom
and Hanley and Henry. I wanted to be by my-
self and I wanted to be near Jerry Tilford if I could
work it. ... I wanted to be as near Jerry as I
could. I felt close to him. ... I was just lone-
some to see Jerry, like wanting to see vour ow T n
father at night when you are a young kid.’

231

PALEFACE

‘The Kid * wanders about, tracks Jerry to a farm-
house. He drives up with some other men. The
Kid w'atches him enter, ‘aching,’ of course. But
then come the ‘fantods.’

§ 24. The Fantods .

‘I crept up along a fence and looked through
a window and saw. It’s what gives me the fan-
tods. I can’t make it out.’

This is where the great Why ? comes in. For the
farmhouse was a brothel, it seems. And Jerry, his
idol, proceeds to defile himself with women, who
arouse m ‘the Kid’ the ml eases t and most correct
aversion.

‘The women in the house were all ugly, mean-
looking women, not nice to look at or be near. . . .
1 saw everything plain. . . . The women had on
loose dresses and sat around m chairs. The men
came in and sat on the w omen’s laps.’

And then, of course, Jerry belm\es m a way that
makes ‘the Kid’ bate him. ‘His eyes began to
shine,’ and ‘then he went and kissed that woman
and I crept away .’

While watching all this through the window his
emotions are of a Negro demonstrativeness. ‘I
began to hate that man. I wanted to scream and
rush 111 the room and kill him. I never had such a
feeling before*. I was so mad clean through that I
cried.’

Everything ends in tears, sooner or later. Every-
232

THE FANTODS

thing ‘ends m a whimper.’ He creeps away and he
is so upset that ho never goes to a racecourse again.

The paroxysms of the over-feminine ‘Kid 5 do, no
doubt, represent an important element in the White
American nature: the sort of thing that has made
it easy to fling it?mto jazz, that caused the gigantic
farce of the lying m state of Valentino, and the rest
of the things that give the European his idea of the
american hysteria. If there were nothing but that,
the noble Red Man, with his legendary calm aloof-
ness, his faultless self-discipline and self-reliance, so
that a solitary Brave was as much to be feared as a
troop, would indeed be as superior to the White as
he is to the Jigging, laughing and crying, yapping
and baaing, average Negro.

§ 25. 4 Uncas 5 and the Noble Rtd&hin .

I will conclude this scrutiny of the material in
which the political message of Mr. Sherwood Ander-
son is imbedded w ith some quotations from A Ntojy-
Tellers Story .

‘Uncas — t4 Le Ccif Agile” . . . has an idea.
Drawing a line m the snow, Ik* stands some fifty
feet from the largest of the trees m the grow and
hurls the hatchet through the air. What a deter-
mined fellow ! I am of the paleface race mysdf
and shall always depend for my execution upon
la longue carabine , but Uncas is of another breed.’

These passages are from the account of the child-
hood of the Story-teller, and this first chapter of his
autobiography is full of the dramatization of the

233

PALEFACE

early pioneering life that lay just behind his brothers
and himself. This sensitive incubation period is full
of Indian-worship, and a long preoccupation with
the 1 primitive ideal. ‘Uncas 5 is Ins brother.

‘There is something direct, brutal and fine in
the nature of Uncas. It is not quite an accident
that m our games he is always the Indian while I
am the despised White, the Paleface. It is per-
mitted me to heal my misfortune a little by being
not a storekeeper or a fur-trader, but that man
nearest the Indian's nature of all the Palefaces
who ever lived on our continent, “La Longue
Carabine”; but I cannot be an Indian and least
of all an Indian of the tribe of the Delawares. I
am noL persistent, patient and determined enough.
As for Uncas, one may coax and wheedle him
along any road, and I am always clinging to that
slight sense of leadership that my additional fif-
teen months of living gives me, bv coaxing and
wheedling, but one may not drive Uncas. To at-
tempt driving linn is but to arouse a stubbornness
and obstinacy that is limitless. Having told a
lie to mother or father, he will stick to the he to
the death, while I — well, perhaps there is m me
something of the dog-like, the squaw-man, the
Paleface. . . / (d Slut y-ltlh)'* Story , p. 10).

Here you get the contrast that is much older and
more fundamental than the Negro question — for
the American has always had more contempt than
anything else for the ‘Nigger’ — or than the sort of
problems raised by Mr. D. H. Lawrence in his Morn-
ings in Mexico . It is the memory of the values that

234

‘UNCAS* AND THE NOBLE REDSKIN

were suddenly confronted when the first White Christian
colonists found themselves face to face with the pagan
Redskin . The White defeated the Redskin, and
even rapidly exterminated linn. But it was with a
bad conscience. He knew that lie had been able to
do it only beeausc*he possessed his ‘longue carabine.’
The noble vigour, unbreakable resolution, high code
of honour, of these physically splendid races, picked
off, thinned out and finally destroyed by his silly
little pop-gun, and m the last stages by his lire-water,
left an ineffaceable impression upon the mind of the
White settler, which can he best defined, perhaps,
as a sense of having stolen a march upon Nature, or
having sinned against Nature, as the puritan con-
science would probablj tlnnk of it.

§ 26. Machines versus Men .

These red ‘savages,’ the Whites always have felt,
w T ere noble 1 sa\ ages 5 (and so they have always cele-
brated them), and not an ignoble, slothful, shamb-
ling, jazzing, laughing-nnd-crymg, sort of big black
baby, w r »th silly, rolling eyes, and big characterless
lips, as the average ‘Nigger 5 is apt too much to be.
To mention the ‘Nigger’ in the same breath as the
Redskin would be absurd. They were of different
clay. And the proud and splendid races possessing
these difficultly -acquired qualities, who inhabited
the northern aniencan continent w T licn they armed,
and w T ho contemptuously called them ‘ Palefaces,’
‘squaw-men,’ and so forth — these races had been
wiped out not by them, but by civilization— by euro-
pean science and its deadly weapons. These

235

PALEFACE

machines had killed those men. Was it right that
these machines should kill those people — and such
splendid people, too ?

This was the first lesson of the White m the great
issue that later on was to occupv such a central posi-
tion m his life — namely, of Man vfi'sus the Machine.
The Redskin provided the first illustration. In that
first picture the Win te was on the side of the Machine.
With his machinery he drove back and then de-
stroyed the Redskin. Later, all human enemies
apparently disposed of, the struggle began between
the all-conquering Machine and himself It looked
as though Ins fate might be the same as that of the
Redskin. To-day that is the problem more than
ever. But it is never stated very clearly, because
all the organization of publicity is m the hands of
the owners of the Machines. Here and there such
writers as Anderson however gi\e expression to it.

§ 27 . Hen/y Fold and the ‘ Poor White '

I have given above a fair account, I belie\ e, of
what must be at the bottom of the anglo-saxon
mind of America, though of course that would not
at all apply to the mind of a recent german 01 rus-
sian immigrant. It is strange that llenry Ford,
who is, I daresay, the greatest Ining Amirjcan,
should stand for all that is most mechanical in the
world and at the same lime should ha\e almost
identically the point of view of Mr. Sherwood Ander-
son as regards the modern city-life of the Machine
Age, and attempt to revive, side by side with, and
away from, his \ast commercial plants, the atmos-
phere of the early colonist days m America.

230

HENRY FORD AND THE 4 POOR WHITE ’

Where Ford is discussing, in one of his pronounce-
ments, the criticisms brought against him for ‘me-
chanizing human beings’ m his factories, he says,
with admirable candour, that lie himself could not
lead the life of one of Ins herd of workmen. Bill he
points out that t?ie humanitarian is wasting his sym-
pathy who wrings his hands over the condition of
these men; for that — Ford says — is the sort ot lile
that brings the greatest happiness to the greatest
number. Most men wish to be machines. They
want to feed and sleep — and mechanical work is a
sort of sleep — and be told what to do, nothing more.
Food, just enough exercise for health, rest and sleep,
a constant supply of new toys, and, above all, no
responsibility — that is the idea.

But Ford is trul\ humane and public -spirited, in
the traditional ouropcan sense, and if others would
agree to follow suil , Ik would cmpt\ his factories to-
morrow, I expect, break up his plant, and return to
the ‘simple life’ with groat satisfaction. That is
whcie he differs from most of In'- follow -magnates,
lie is a superman of the Machine Age, but he is still,
paradoxically, a ‘creature of spirit.’ He is not him-
self a machine.

237

PALEFACE

CONCLUSION

§ 1. The While Machine and Us Complexes.

I T was originally my intent ion, *as an excursus to
this preliminary essay, to pro\ide a carefully
sifted list of the great group of 'complexes*
carried about by the average White Man to-daj r . (I
use the word 4 complexes ’ as that will eonvey to the
general reader w r hat is meant, and it also particu-
larly recommends itself, since it is precisely Freud
and his assistants, w r ho, along with the idiotic word,
ha\e supplied the idiotic thing — have helped in
short to build up the full Idiot, as lie is emerging
today.)

It would be necessary, of course, to overhaul this
list e\ery six months, as new material arrives by
every post. But the mam lines could now be defi-
nitely established.

I should lia\c grouped these complexes under
their specific* headings. There would be, for in-
stance, the ‘husband’ complex (virility-motif); age
complex (A. young, B. old, variety); sex complex
(shamamstic vanety, sentimental frothing capitula-
tion, etc. — the basi-ard-american negntic hysteria of
k I Want to Know Why ’) ; infantilism (the desire to
remain in sheltered tutelage, refusal of responsi-
bility), and so on. With each I should have pro-
vided a complete definition, and a set of concrete
illustrations, of the fool-proof sort. But as this
would have great lv extended t he length of my essay,
it w r as necessary t o abandon that part of the evidence.

238

THE WHITE MACHINE AND ITS COMPLEXES

As the White spirit shrinks, oppressed under its
burden of war, business insecurity, blood-tax, do-
mestic interference, domestic disunion, constant
threat of revolutionary cataclysm, anti-cataclysm,
and so forth, its very position of world-mastery,
racial advantage and prestige, is inclined to become
a mockery and burden to it. Everywhere to-day
the White European (both as a European and also
among the great White colonics and nations) is pro-
foundly uneasy, and looks apprehensively behind
him at all moments, conscious of a watchful presence
at his back, or somewhere concealed in his neigh-
bourhood, which he does not understand. Dark
Laughter of Ihc hidden watching negro servants is a
typical concrete expression of this uneasiness: evi-
denth , when mastcis become obsessed w ith their ser-
vants, they are then only masters m name. But
this lliieatcmng something to wdiosc presence I refer
is, of course, m a different category of terror and
menace from the fairly harmless concrete Negro.
Mcamvlnle inside himself (then* he never looks,
though it is, of course, there that he should direct
the most objective glance that lie can muster), the
ferment of the intellect ualist disease goes on, and
‘complex’ after ‘complex’ is introduced, attacks
some mortal centre of life and vitality, and a further
portion of the White civilized soul is dismtegiated:
a further stagger, hop or shamble is given to the
White machine.

§ 2. ‘ Inferiority ,’ and t withdrawal ‘ Back to Nature .’

So, in the books that we have been considering,
where the White Man is confronted by the Black,

239

PALEFACE

the Red or the Brown, he now feels inside himself a
novel sensation of inferiority. He has, in short, an
‘inferiority complex’ where ever}’ non- White, or
simply alien personality or consciousness, is con-
cerned. Especially is it in Ins capacity of civilized
(as opposed to pi imitivc , ‘savage,* ‘animal’) that he
has been taught to feel mjeuor.

The trick of this inferiority could all be laid bare
by any inquiring person who took the trouble to ex-
amine, not the purely curative doctrine of Dr. Freud,
but his philosophical, literary, sociological teaching,
and its psychological ramifications throughout our
society. There are many factors beside Freud: but
Psychoanalysis is m itself quite adequate.

The trick of the inferiority complex that we have
been approaching, via creative fiction, is to be
sought m a certain belief that has been imposed
gradually upon the White Consciousness, during
forty or fifty ycais, namely, a belief (it reduces itself
to that) that man cannot ‘progress’ beyond the
savage or the animal: that when lie tues to (as the
White European has done, as the Hellene did), he
becomes m the mass ineffective and ridiculous:
therefore, that the sooner lie turns about, and re-
traces his steps until he is once more like the Huns
of Attila, or any community whose mam business in
life is to ‘snnte hip and thigh ’ sonic other rival com-
munity — or like the plain unvarnished man-eating
tiger, or the wild boar, the better.

Tins direction of thought, and With the greatest
definition this purpose is visible, has moulded all
those schools of fiction, or fancy, specimens of which
(from the pages of Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Anderson)

210

4 INFERIORITY ’ AND ‘BACK TO NATURE 4

I have given m evidence. The particular human-
ism of Pound is cut from the same stuff (cf. The
Goodly Fere of Pound, with the sentimental-militant
interpretation of Christ).

All through the range of his complexes the con-
temporary White Man can be observed at the same
occupation, consisting everywhere m a reversal and
a return. For instance, as an adult lie looks back at
the child , and he is taught to say m his heart that
the child is a ‘better man/ so to speak, than he is.
Therefore he seeks to become as infantile as possible,
and to approximate, as far as may be, to the infan-
tile condition. By the Bergson school of thought
he has been taught to regard intuition (the ‘intuition
of the Woman,’ for example, contrasted with ‘the
mere logic of the Man ’) as superior to Intellect. So
he looks back towards that feminine chaos, from
which the masculine principles have differentia led
themselves, as more perfect. As the Child is more
perfect than, and the conditions of its life more
desirable than those of the Man, so the mind of the
Woman is more perfect than, and the lot of the
Woman — m league with or immersed in Nature —
more to be desired than the lot of Hie Man. So the
contemporary man has grown to desire to be a
woman, and has taken obvious steps to effect this
transformation (cf. pages on shamnnistic cult, Art oj
Being Ruled). Then Power or Wealth has been re-
presented as not only evil m itself, but not at all to
be desired (ef. the ‘higher type’ of collective man of
communism, according to Rene Fulop-Miller). And
so on through all the series of backward- cults, from
primitivism or naturalism, to fairyhood.

2tl

Q

rALEFACE

§3. The Revolutionary Rock-cbill and the Laws of
Time.

As people stand and watch the rock-drill at work
in the street, so they watch the engine of political
destruction ai work, asking themselves stupidly
what it is all about. Why is all this going forward
in our midst m this very strange and open manner?
There is something here I don't understand ! It is
as though the authorities had sent the ‘revolution-
ary’ drill, under an armed escort, to break up the
public thoroughfare. It ’s very odd ! — I suppose my
brain is not able to grasp these new ideas ! whispers
poor fuddled Mr. Everyman to himself, apprehen-
sively. He perhaps looks round guiltily, to see if
lus astonishment has been observed.

If one of these puzzled, staring members of the
great Public consulted Spongier, that celebrated
philosopher would reply, ‘Well, accoidmg to the
time-table of the best chronological philosophy (a
time-table as absolute as that of solar eclipses — I
have reduced it all to a very orderly and predictable
scheme indeed), according to that lime-table White
Civilization is now virtually at an end. The various
White Governments, leahzmg this, have directed
various groups of “social workers" (as juumc) to
come and break up the White World with that up-
to-date psychological equipment you perceive them
handling with so much adroitness. Why they use
that rather violent and noisv “cataclysmic” rock-
drill is because, if they didn’t do that, it w r ould take
a very long tune to break up the tirmly cemented
White World (lots of money and energy was spent

242

THE REVOLUTIONARY ROCK-DRILL

on cementing it, you see, and in making if solid
and resistent), and then we should all be behind the
Time-table! The various governments, as it is,
are exceedingly concerned at the length of time
it takes to break up any specilic bit of civilization.
They had not icalizcd how tough their cmliza-
tion was.’

‘Hut why do the Western governments want to
smash up their own property, papa?’ \ou can hear
the puzzled Flam Man (making his little eyes and
mouth three round O’s) liiquiie of the poitontous
Profcssoi .

‘Because, niv little man,’ Ilcrr Spenglcr would
reply severely, ‘because they know they’ie behind-
hand. They would nevei do anything that might
result in mv Time-table bung contradicted or dis-
proved. They w ill not risk — ne\ er fear! — offending
Timtl Not Tnne\ You understand v When you
little Flam Men say ‘ Time is money,’ that is saeulege.
Even/thing — not only money — is Time.’

The Man in the Street would be no wiser than he
was before, but lie would be considerably impiessed
and frightened. A \asl shadow’ across the sk\,
labelled Zeitgeist* would dimlv emerge for him, the
god of the rock-dnil, a sort oJ scientific god. When
next he saw the engines of upheaval and chaos at
work, he would take good care to ask no questions!
He would hurry on. t lying to look as much as pos-
sible like Brer Rabbit; or else like a little innocent
Child, ‘mindless’ and irresponsible, slightly moron-
esque — as small and a hundred times as harmless as
a fly.

‘213

PALEFACE

§ 1. The ' Jump' from Noa-Noa 1o Class-War.

Wiiat has ‘primitivism * in art (taking Gauguin as
a model of primilivist thought) got to do with the
orthodox revolutionary doctrine of the Mass man,
you may ask. That “jump’ is ivat a very long or
difficult one, but it may be that some readers are not
sufficientlv trained, or have not sufficient political
experience, to make it. So I will state very briefly
how these things arc connected.

All war is compelled to be anti-progressist m the
first place; it has to deny not only the notion of
‘progress,’ but also of humanity itself, as a privileged
classification or principle of action. Every Western
government has now accepted all that the new con-
ditions of gas and aerial warfare entail. No future
belligerent will be able to make use of a propaganda
campaign about ‘atrocities,’ as was the ease in the
last war: in advance every form of ‘atrocity’ is
taken for granted. That is an entirely new situa-
tion in the civilized european world. It imposes a
formidable change of attitude upon any civilized
government taking up arms today. The first thing
on the declaration of var that all the air-squadrons
of those governments engaged would have to do
would be to go and bomb and muidcr the sleeping
citizens of the nation on whom w r ar had been de-
clared. The method of murder and poison, only
upon a vast scale, which formerly w r as recognized as
the peculiar province of Renaissance Italy and actu-
ally the monopoly of the Borgias. is imposed upon us
by the development of our machinery of destruction.

But the marxian doctrine of ‘ class-war ’ is after all

214

THE ‘JUMP’ FROM NOA-NOA TO CLASS-WAR

war : and it is impossible for revolutionary method
not to keep pace with its militarist opponent. So
you get most communists committed to the same
anti-liumane tram of thought as the militarist. And
further it is essential lor people engaged in preparing
for such events to instil into the Public a philosophy
which must be ‘ruthless,’ materialist and mechani-
cal. And so a philosophy must ensue that is a
contradiction of eommonsense, and it will be quite
unlike anv other popular philosophy that has ever
existed. For here with our rapidIy-e\oIvmg ma-
chines of destruction at our sides we are m a differ-
ent position to any former men.

The philosophy required will run generally as
follows* The tiger is ‘ruthless’; the Borneo head-
hunter used to hunt a man’s head as we go out with
a butterfly net. those are the true models for you,
Mr. Citizen! To the ‘Tiger burning bright* the
political propagandist point s enthusiastically : about
that apocalyptic beast there is no nonsense, he
is ‘frankly an animal,’ without any sentimental
squeamishness, he frankly enjoys the salts lie finds
in the human blood he taps; as he leaps upon Ins
human prey, and squashes the entrails out of it, he
‘thinks’ of nothing, he is a machine that acts . That
is what poor little Mr. Citizen must do when the
time comes. And the time is not far off, he is
warned: and so with the class-war and the little
communist .

No room at all is left for either (1) the chivalry of
earlier nationalist w ar, nor for (2) the sort of humani-
tarian socialism of Fourier or Samt-Simon, or for
that matter for the fabianism in which the very

215

PALEFACE

genial and benevolent Mr. George Bernard Shaw
was nourished.

But people do not believe in the alleged motives
for wars any more today, and they are uncertain as
to the benefits of revolutions. Henceforth then all

o

those forms of organized violence must be gone into
to some extent against human reason; they are
henceforth motiveless, and hence mad. That is
why the fever and delirium is essential, in those
masses who are to participate in them. Organized
mechanized violence must be made to assume the
inscrutable face of a 'necessity — a necessity of Nature ,
not of man — man, indeed, must be carefully kept
out of the picture.

But these same machines, which impose this type
of war upon us, and hence also t he philosophy that
is required by it, in order to make it possible, also
take us farther and farther aw r ay, in our everyday
life, from ‘savagery,’ or primitive conditions. The
petrol engine and rapidly evolving transport facili-
ties of all sorts, along with wireless and the eniema,
make nationalism more unreal and implausible every
day. This is another desperate feature of the
matter (from the point of view of the promoter of
violence) that requires a desperate (philosophic)
remedy. The ordered systematic, sensible atmo-
sphere of our everyday life again renders men recal-
citrant to programmes of primitive Molence. That
is why a lolence today lias to introduce itself a la
Borgia . A propagandist religion of violence and
‘action,’ that everywhere takes the form of a return
to Nature cult, m one form or another, is born of
these necessities.

246

BACKWARD STEPS AS FORWARD STEPS

§ 5. How all Backward Steps hax e to be represented
as Forward Steps .

All tins involves a backward step, then. From
any standpoint at all that you enre to adopt, except
that of a invstieal surrender of life altogether, such
violence as is now involved m war must appear to
the eye of reason as retrograde.

And here is the kc\ to the form of a great deal of
eontemporarv work m every field of activity. The
backward step has to be represented as a forward step .
‘Progress/ it is true as a notion, must be violently
attacked and discredited: but at the same time it
would be impossible to persuade people to do any-
thing without some sort of idea of ‘progress’ or
betterment. So, with an ill grace, ‘progressist’
imagery and inducements have got to be used. As
a sister paradox to this, an extreme primitivism has
to be preached, vet all I he reality of what is truly
primitive , chronologically, has to be removed from
the pictures employed as baits and advertisements.

There is a very hastv sketch of political primitiv-
ism , as it could be called. It is not difficult to see
how beautifully it agrees with the artistic primitiv-
ism of Mr. D. H Lawrence — with aztee blood-sacri-
lices, mystical and savage abandonments of the self,
abstract sex-rage, etc , or Mr. Site rwood Anderson’s
more muddleel and less up-to-date pnimtivist bag of
tricks. And, in a general way, how useful art is, m
a philosophy that must . as its lirst condition, be
motiveless .

As to the reason for my interest in these tolstoyan
problems of War and Peace, it is not, of course,

‘247

PALEFACE

humanitarian. You need go no further than the
very practical and unsentimental fact, or facts, of
the most vital interests of an artist being ruined by
orgies of violence and ‘action,’ to understand my
attitude, if you look for personal motive m it. It
takes a long time without interruption to do any-
thing worth doing in an art or science, and that
(apart from the fact that it is a philosophy for brutes
and the most complete ‘morons/ as they are called,
only) the accursed philosophy we are discussing
denies us You could not describe such opinions
as ‘selfish,’ seeing that the interests represented
are identical with everybody clse’s m this respect,
except those of such as make money or acquire power
by means of wars of all sorts.

§ 6. A Walking Definition of the ‘ Sentimental

In my analysis of the primitivism of Messrs. Law-
rence and Anderson, especially with regard to their
attitude 1 to the Negro or Indian. I point out how in
both cases they were careful to accuse all other
people who had ever approached Blacks or Indians
of being ‘sentimental towards,’ or else full of hatred
for those coloured aliens . It seems plain to me that
this was a step, merely, to protect themselves
against an accusation that they realize they have
deserved.

It will be useful, however, to get some meaning
into the tag ‘sentimental’ before we leave it.

Any idea should be regarded as ' sentimental 9 that is
not taken to its ultimate conclusion . I propose that
as a working definition of ‘sentimentality.’

218

DEFINITION OF THE 4 SENTIMENTAL ’

What is the ‘ultimate conclusion * of anything?
you could object. But that evocation of the distant
metaphysical limit has nothing to do with a working
definition: we wish for a definition that will take
us, not out of sight, but to the limits of our horizon
only. •

Why I regard the spirit of the works of Mr. Ander-
son and of Mr. Lawrence as sentimental, is because
it indulges m «i series of emotions that, if persevered
in by the Public they are intended to influence,
would cancel themselves. I regard Mr. Anderson
as more sentimental than Mr. Lawrence, because I
do not think he suspects what the real issues are at
all; whereas I daresay Mr. Lawrence know r s to some
extent, though just as he was m the first instance a
little vague as to w here the ideas lie used came from,
he piobably is not over clear as to whither they are
bound, or w hat their atlihations are. All ernati\ ely,
if both Mr. Anderson and Mr. Lawrence sec these
conclusions with extreme clearness, then they are
deliberately employing, at least, the machinery of
sentimentality. But 1 think they both use it too
naturally for it not to be native to them.

§ 7. Eveiy Age has been ‘ a Machine Age'

The further investigation of those questions that
have specifically to do with the machine, w T ith an
adumbration of what our attitude should be w r ith
regard to the machine, must be left to a later stage
of this essay. In order to give some completeness
to this first pul dished part 1 will, however, make a
few r remarks before having the subject.

249

PALEFACE

The hideous condition of our world is often attri-
buted t o ‘ dark ’ agencies, willing its overthrow. But
there have always been such devils incarnate — it
goes without saying that there are such e\il agencies
— ‘dark’ influences of every sort are certain at all
moments to be at work. That alone would not ac-
count for tin' unique' position of universal danger
and disorganization in which we find ourselves all
round the globe. It is obviously to its mechanical
instrument, not to the human will itself, that we
must look. Without Wluti Science and the terrible
power of its engines, such evil people as always
abound would be relatively harmless.

How we might dispense with the Machine, or,
rather, use it differently, can perhaps be suggested
by a brief consideration of the mechanical, or geo-
metric, as it appears m art.

Many attempts lane beui made to associate art
with the triumph of the Machine Age. The ques-
tion, ‘A*e machines beautiful m themselves?’ has
been asked for many years now. What people usu-
ally neglect to notice is that all the most splendid
plastic and pictorial art is in a \ery strict sense geo-
metric. El cry age has been a Machine Ag(. At
least you can say that as far as art is concerned, and
as far as the machine is the application of geometric
punciples.

An alaskan totem-pole, a Solomon Island canoe,
a Siamese or nulian temple, is a machine . inasmuch
as it is m its concatenated parts, composed of very
mechanically definite units, and is built up according
t o a rigid geometric plan. The hunch of cylinders of
a petrol engine has very much the same structural

250

EVERY AGE HAS BEEN A ‘MACHINE AGE’

appeal as a totem-pole or the column of a mayan
divinity. Engravings of such machinery have
something even of the aesthetic appeal of theJaitcr.

So, m the field of art, there is nothing novel in
machinery. All jmnntix e people have proved them-
selves a sort of aesthetic engineers. So, m a sense, a
great suspension bridge, or a modern factory build-
ing — or a turbine engine — is only reintroducing into
our life an element which the most ancient art
supremely’ possessed, but which has been absent in
european art, and which existed nowhere in curo-
pcan life to any great extent, until the industrial age.

Life itself, in all its foims, lias always possessed
this, how r ever. The insect and plant worlds, much
more than the animal world, ha\e always earned
their structure outside, as it were, and thrust it upon
the eye. The insect world could be truly said to be
a Machine World, much more than our age, ih yet,
is a Machine Age.

The idea that plastic and graphic art is a soft, in-
definite, fluffy or vague sort of thing, is more than a
Victorian prejudice. It is almost a european pre-
judice. Plastic or graphic ait is, in fact, nothing of
the sort: it is essentially a geometric thing, a Hung
of structure. But with european art the structure ,
the geometric ba^is of beauty, has always tended to
be covered up, hidden away (and so lost very often),
more than is the case wnth the great aesthetic sys-
tems of the East. The hellenie naturalism, the
result of the greek scientific bias, has, as I see it,
resulted in Europe m an art which, except m the
case of a few individuals of very great genius, has
been so inferior to the art of China, for instance, that

251

PALEFACE

it could almost be said that the European had never
understood the secrets of the pure eye at all. It is
for that reason that I have said elsewhere that I
consider this centur\ has to its credit more art of
the best kind than all the other centuries of euro-
pean art put together, except the a’ge of the Renais-
sance. This is, no doubt, partly due to the Jewish
influence, partly to the fact that specimens of the
art of the East and of the antiquity of the* so-called
Ancient East, have become available to the Euro-
pean. (The gothic naturalism, m its severer mo-
ments, produced a very great art: but the general
effect of the gothic buildings, according to the
standard I am advancing, is one of a cloudy, not
truly plastic, naturalism, that makes it not a thing
of the eye, but of the 1 musical’ soul — m Spengler’s
sense.)

§ 8. What is 'the West ’ 9

Tiikkk is a belief, or prejudice, that you cannot
be a good plastic artist and at the same time ‘a good
European.’ It would be an important step in the
reform and rejuvenation of our beliefs if we could
overcome such prejudices. The appreciation of the
formal beauties of mexican pottery, for instance,
does not in any way involve enthusiasm for mexican
gods, though I daresay the Aztecs themselves would
scarcely recognize Mr. Lawrence’s account of their
beliefs. You could ‘flash up’ for Mr Sherwood
Anderson the perspiring black back of a Negro with-
out wishing necessarily to share Bildad’s lodging,
marry Ins sister or daughter, or embrace his beliefs

S52

THE INTELLECT 6 SOLIDIFIES '

or habits. You could use the colours and forms of
a half-dozen magnificent beetles without becoming
an insect ; you could use the shape of a grasshopper
in an arabesque without taking to hopping, just as
you could admire the shawl of a IIopi without wish-
ing to be a IIopi,* } ou could make use of the white
expanse of an icepack for vour picture without
yearning to live the life of an Esquimau. These few r
illustrations will, I hope, be of assistance m bringing
out this part of mv argument, which is a matter of
some importance for what we have been mainly dis-
cussing.

§ 0. The Intellect * Solidifies * (The Jt^nnenh ad-
vanced here in their relation to the Thonmt
Position )

TiiKRh is a sinnlai confusion to the above which,
since it has a good deal of bearing on what I every-
where have to saw I will attempt to dispel m passing,
as well as using it to confirm the present phase of
m v argument

Extreme concreteness and extreme definition is
for me a neccssitv. Hence I find mvself naturally
aligned today, to some extent, with the philosophers
of the catholic revival. Against the mvsticism of
the mathematician I find myself with Bishop Berke-
ley (though, of course he is claimed by the enemies
of the concrete, strangely enough) : I am on the side
of commonscnse, as against abstraction, as w r as
Berkeley, and as are today the thomist thinkers
(though the militant neo-thomist would repudiate
any association of their doctrine w r ith that of the

253

PALEFACE

great Irish idealist): and my position, inasmuch as
it causes me to oppose on all issues ‘the romantic/
comes under the heading ‘classical/

To show you how this must come about I will
quote a passage from a book which I have just
obtained, L'lntellectualismc dc Stunt Thomas , by
Pere Pierre Itousselot, S.J. lie is enumerating the
charges usually brought against the thonust ‘mtcl-
lectualism/

‘On reproche a Tint died ualisnic scolastiquc
d’extenuerei d’abstiaire; on lui reproche aussi dc
“sohdificr/ 1 Ce nouveau grief, qui pourrait sem-
bler, au premier abord, s’accordcr mal avec le
premier, n’en cst, au contraire, qu’unc expression
plus adequate. Abstrairc , e’est mepriser le fluent
et postuler la permanence; e’est done cnstalliser
ce qui so repand, concent ror le diffus, glaccr ce qui
coule; e’est solid) fier /

Neglecting here the particular signihcance given
to the tcim ‘abstraction ’ by Father Itousselot, it
will be evident that what is laid to the charge of
scholasticism, m this account, could also be levelled
at what I si\ or rather I, precisely, would claim
the possession of all these characteristics that aie
here catalogued as crimes. To solid) Uj* to make con -
cute , to give definition to — that is my profession: to
‘despise the fluid’ (mtpriser lc fluent) and ‘to pos-
tulate permanence’ (postuler la permanence); to
crystallize that which (otherwise) flows aw*a>, to
concentrate the diffuse, to turn to ice that which is
liquid and mercurial — that certainly describes my
occupation, and the tendency of all that I think.

251

‘THE WEST * AND ‘THE CLASSICAL'

That is why I range myself, in some sense, with the
modern scholastic teachers.

This does not, however, at all mean that I share
their historical prejudices, any more than it means
that I share their dogmas. I do neither, in fact.
‘Classical’ is for me anything which is nobly delincd
and exact, as opposed to that which is fluid — of the
Elux — without outline, romantically ‘daik,’ vague',
‘mystenous,’ stormy, uncertain. The hcllenic age
has no monopoly of those qualities geneialh cata-
logued as ‘classical’; so, according to me, the term
‘classical’ is used in much too restricted, historical,
a sense; m a word, too historically.

§ 10. The Xeccssity lot a AVzc Conception of ‘the
West/ and of the Classical/

The opposition, as jl understood here, is not
between the Roman Cult and Aristotle on the one
hand, and the ‘modernist’ disorder of Nineteenth
Century ‘ romant if,* 4 ve\ oiutionary,’ europcan
thought, on the other. Rather it is a unnersal op
position; mid the seed'* of the naturalist mistakes
are ccihunlv to be iound precisely m Giecee: and I
believe we should use the Classical Orient (using tins
distinction in the sense ot Guenon) to rescue us at
length from that far-reaching tradition.

These are statements of principle only, and I am
not able here to make them more than that. Rare
as they are for the present, 1 hope they will have
served to foreshadow' the conclusions to which the
whole foregoing analyses of my essay have been in-
tended to lead. ‘European’ does not mean for me

255

PALEFACE

a fixed historical thing, for it is so little that, in any
ease. If you tried to make of gache chivalry and
italian science, german music and norsc practical
enterprise, one thing, that would be a strange
monster. Which is demonstrated by Mr. Massis m
his Defense de l Occident, where li*s ‘West 5 is con-
fined to the latin soil. This is an evasion only of the
problem. It is just against that separatism as be-
tween the different segments of the West that we
have most to contend. We should have — should
we not? — our local Melting-pot.

It is a new West , as it were, that we have to en-
visage: one that, vc may hope, has learnt some-
thing from its recent gigantic reverses. For it is
only bv a fresh effort that the Western World can
save itself: it can only become ‘the West’ at all, in
fact, m that wav, bv an act of further creation.

There arc a great many common traditions and
memories and a considerable consanguinity: that is
the ‘material,’ at least, for one 4 West.’ As it is, not
only such people as Spcnglcr, but also (but \uth
better motives, and perhaps inevitably) the catholic
thinkers and the best of the ‘patriots,’ insist on re-
garding the problem historically, m terms of a rigid
arrest. ‘The West “ is for almost all of ihose a fin-
ished thing, either over whoj-c decay th'*v gloat, or
whose corpse they trantically ‘defend.* It never
seems to occur to them that the exceedingly novel
conditions of life today demand an entirely new
conception : in that respect they arc firmly on the
side of those people who would thrust us back into
the medieval chaos and barbarity; at whose hyp-
notic ‘historical’ suggestion we would fight all the

‘256

LIVE AND LET LIVE

old european wars over again, like a gigantic east of
Movie supers, and so till the pockets of these political
impresarios,

§ 11. IIoiv the Black and the White might live and let
live .

Since I have been discouraging, to the best ol* my
ability, those tendencies (found on all hands) of
White capitulation and sclf-entieism, in the pre-
sence of the ‘rising tide of Colour/ and especially
tendenc.es to invite the White Man to learn and to
adopt the primitive communism (ri al or imaginary),
nihilistic mysticism, and so on, of the primitive Ind-
ian or the Black, it is necessary to return to what I
have said m the ' Moral Situation,' and to insist once
more upon the fact that it is not the Melting-pot i
object to, but the depreciation and damage done to
one of the ingredients. I should not welcome a
race-war, or a holy wai, cither of an leelesia millions
or any other type, as a sub^duti loi all the other
obviously less real or fundamental class- w f ars that
have been arranged foi us. That is not my idea.
Nothing will certainly e\ er com mcc me that a White
Man is not more deeply separated from a Negro
(race-separation) than a Poor White is separated
from a Rich White, or a White Fish-porter from a
White Miner (cJass-scparatioii). But I have used a
quotation from the Vision of Judgment , by r Lord
Byron, earlier m t his essay to illustrate my attitude:

‘ His Darkness and his Brightness
Exchanged a greeting of extreme politeness.’

I believe that we cannot, in fact, be polite enough to

r 257

PALEFACE

all those other kinds of men with whom we are called
upon to pass our time upon the face of this globe.
We should grow more and more polite : but, if pos-
sible, see less and less of such other kinds of men
between whom and ourselves there is no practical
reason for physical merging, nor for spiritual merg-
ing, or even very many reasons against both — for
there are such people, too. But why war? If the
White World had kept more Lo itself and interfered
less with other people, it would have remained politi-
cally intact, and no one would have molested it : the
Negro would still be squatting outside a mud-hut on
the banks of the Niger : the Delaware would still be
chasing the buffalo. We could have been another
China. Such aloofness today, as things have turned
out, is an ideal merely, though to me it is not an
ideal. I merely put the matter m that light because
for the average unenlightened Paleface that would
seem much better — he would like to be a powerful
boss rather than a cosmopolitan wage-slave in the
Meltmg-pot, .and his ideas do not soar above some
regional dream. It is always from an exaggeration,
however, on one side or tin other, that the actual
comes into existence. Everything real that has
ever happened has come out of a dream, or a Utopia.
We are the Utopia oi the amoeba. Many of our
lives would seem heaven to the apes.

Are the assumptions at the basis of this discussion
as conducted by me entirely false or merely alarm-
ist? Very many other people, better qualified, m
important ways, than I am, to judge, share my
views. Let me quote one or two.

•J58

LIVE AND LET LIVE

'Several years ago I wrote an essay on ‘‘The
White Man and his Rivals/’ in which I pointed
out the menace to the domination of the European,
races from the awakening ambitions of Asia. Till
about the beginning of the present century it was
taken for granted by almost everybody that the
permanent sujnemaej of the Whites was assured.
. . . We had forgotten . . . how entnely that
prepondei anee has hem due to superiority m
weapons and industrial inventions . . . how for-
midable the Brow'll and Yellow iaces arc by their
intelligence, their \ast numbers, and their untir-
ing industry.

‘Much has happened since then to confirm my
forecast, and now we have an important and very
disquieting book by Mr. Upton Close, an Ameri-
can (The Revolt of Asia). . . .

* Hi has fm mi d the eon viclion that the suicidal
war of 191 4-1 91 8 ushered in “the end of the White
Man’s world.” . . . Russia as an asiatie nation
entirely alters the balance of power between the
two continents. . . . Russia has not ceased to be
“imperialist” and aggressive under Communism/

This is from an article* by Dean Inge (Evening
Standard , May 11th, 1927). In the Criterion (Au-
gust, 1927) Mr. T. S. Eliot, referring approvingly to
a ‘meditation on the decay of European civilization
by Paul Valery/ writes: ‘the Russian Revolution
has made men conscious ol the position of Western
Europe as (in Valery’s words) a small and isolated
cape on the western side of the Asiatic Continent/
While I wa<* w ritmg the rough draft of this essay on

259

PALEFACE

the Atlantic the following news item appeared in the
Daily Mail, Atlantic Edition, August 15th, 1927 : —

‘SERIOUS BOLIVIAN REVOLT

‘Thousands oi Rebels Amok

4 La Pa4, Bolivia, Sunday .

‘Five thousand Indians, under Communist in-
fluence, have destroyed the railway at Potosi and
Sucre, and invaded the surrounding districts.
They are murdering any who offer resistance.

‘The Bolivian Federal Army are fighting the
savages, and heavy casualties are reported on both
sides.

‘The revolt has assumed serious proportions
and l he Federal Army cavalry captured several
chiefs and executed them, together with 100 of
their followers. — Central News'

i

‘VVHITKS 11EINU Klljl/KD
'(From Out Own Cot respondent)

* Buenos Aires, Sunday

' Reports from La Paz, the Bolivian capital, de-
clare that the Indian rising, under native and
foreign Communist leaders, is most serious. Two
hundred thousand well -aimed insurgents are now
holding the railway line.

‘Whites arc being killed and house-, burned.
They appeal to the Government, which admits
the situation is grave.’

The sequel to tins was reported (September 8th)
in the Veto York Herald.

260

LIVE AND LET LIVE

‘ BOLIVIAN CHARGES
‘Red Intervention
4 ( Special to the “ IloahV ')

• ‘ La Paz, Bomyi Wednesday.

4 An alleged proof of Communistic actmtics m
South America, directed and iinanccd by t lie Third
International of Moscow, was presented in Parlia-
ment today by the Bolivian Foreign Minister,
who read letters signed by Bukharin and Zulkmd,
prominent Russian leaders of international Com-
munism. The exposure was followed by a vote of
confidence m the Government.

‘The documents included instructions to “Com-
rade Martinez, member of the Lat in-American
section of the Communist International, '* to pro-
ceed to Pans to obtain funds. After this he was
to return to Bolivia, open a business house to con-
ceal re\ olutionai \ work, and foment Communist
revolt among the workers.

‘One letter was addressed to “Comrade Bas-
tion, Pans.” It introduced Martinez and in-
structed Dastion to give 1,000,000 francs to the
Bolivian agitator out of the propaganda fund.’

I have quoted this to show how the regrettable
imperialist and also humanitarian zeal of the Soviet
probably is responsible for trouble, often, where
Whites and the Coloured peoples are found together,
as in South America or South Africa.

The ‘open conspiracy,’ as Mr. II. G. Wells de-
scribes it m Clissold, rumbles and drags itself for-

261

PALEFACE

ward, spitting fire and brimstone, only very imper-
fectly subterranean : it is a pity that we should have
to admit that the Communist is responsible for the*e
Coloured aggressions, and that it should after all be
a Paleface (a russian agitator) who requires our
White attention. In any ease we know that the
Indian, like the Negio, politically apathetic and
would do little himself. But no tears are necessary
to deal with l Ins: only a strong movement of in-
structed opinion The Indian, like the Chinese, is
friendly and pacific. Even Ins black laughter is im-
ported. The White teaches him that too. Really
our White moral zeal is regrettable! for its immedi-
ate result can only be, when exercised so clumsily, to
provide our bosses with labour cheaper than ours,
rather like Hie feminist revolution. It seems to be
playing into the White bosses’ hands.

§ 12. The pat l Race has always played in Class . 1

I will quote here, without further comment, a
passage from l he Ait of Being Ruled. It will, 1
think, be of assistance where those questions of race
that we ha\ e been discussing are concerned. Especi-
ally it will throw into relief the great pari that ract
must play m class.

fc Il may be well to go for n moment into flit*
relation between class and race m the formation of
the former. The classes that have been parasitic
on other classes have always m the past been
uiees. The class-privilege lias been a raee-privi-
lege. Every white man has until recently been in
full possession of a race-privilege where other
races* of other colours were concerned, which con-
262

THE PART RACE HAS PLAYED IN CLASS

stituted the white man as a class. The privilege
was never developed to the extent that the ach-
aian race-privilege of the atheman citizen, for
example, was. But in a general wav it formed
part of the consciousness ol the white man.
Cleanliness wjis next to godliness, and whiteness
was the indispensable condition of cleanliness.
So to be a chosen people was to be a white people.

‘This class element in race expressed itself in
the application of the term “lady,” for instance,
to the most modest citizens of the anglo-saxon
race. The lady m char-lady is a rice court esv-
t itle. It is a class-title that it was possible for hei
to exact on the score of race. This rudiment arv
fact \ cry few poor whites lia\ e understood. They
have been inclined to take these small but pre-
cious advantages for granted, as indicative of a
7 cal superiority, not one resulting, as in fact it did,
*from the sum ss ol the organized society to which
they belonged. They have confused class with
race — somewhat to their undoing as far as the
immediate present is concerned.

‘Today race* and colour are as distinctive feat-
ures as ever and it is unlikely in the future that
race will cease 10 play its part in the formation of
class/

Since writing this I have visited America and have
somewhat modified my views in const quencc.

§ 13 . Black Laughter in Russia.

Ik these last tw o sub-scctions of my Conclusion I
will return to the subject that occupied fcuch a con-

203

PALEFACE

siderable space in my criticism of Anderson and
Lawrence. The clumsy adulteries of the dull Whites
haunted by the black laughter of their Negro servants
was the contribution of Anderson. Much more
thorough and fundamental, Mr. D. H. Lawrence
showed us all creatures whatever, a position of
servitude or defeat, ‘taking it out’ of their oppres-
sors, successors, or masters, by malevolent laughter
and mockery of some sort. Thus the parrots ‘take
it out of’ the little dog, Corasmm, or out of his
masters (Rosahno or Mr. Lawrence), with their per-
petual mutations. The ‘high-pitched negro laugh-
ter,’ and the shrill voices of the parrots, come out of
the same situation.

All these are examples of revenge, in the form of
mirth, directed against creatures who are evidently
‘bourgeois’ and recognized as Top-dogs. But Mr.
Fulop-Miller has his story of Black Laughter of
another sort. The Black Laugher no sooner has
overthrown the overlord or master and stepped into
his shoes, than up goes the Black Laughter against
him. He is now the ‘ boss.’ That is, at all events,
the story. Here it is.

‘For the new ruler of Russia, the Mass man.
who came to bring freedom to the earth, id a very
short time learned how to use the resources and
tncks of tyranny bitter than the cruellest tsars.

. . . No one ventured on any protest, any resist-
ance, however slight : there was not a single open
word of censure. . . .

‘But all at once it became evident that the
subtly constricted apparatus of “mechanized
obedience ” w’as not entirely reliable. . . . Some-
264

BLACK LAUGHTER IN RUSSIA

thing disconcerting happened, due to natural
forces without any intervention on the part of the
subjects: that unplea sail! thing the '‘soul” which
in spite of all mechanization had never been com-
pletely eradicated, and was sleeping a sleep that
looked like deaih,suddenl\ woke up in a smile that
lurked on the lips of someone somewhere With
this first smile at the failure of the loudly trump-
eted experiments of Bolshevism began the real,
the dangerous, counter-resolution, for it worked
m secret and gradually attained a sinister penver.
At firsi one person smiled, then others m increas-
ing numbers. Soon the snulcrs united in a mys-
tical organization and then mirth at last expanded
into uncontrollable elemental laughter. Tins first
revolt against Bolshevik oppression was the re-
bellion of’ the despairing ; evermore frequently the
hidden wrath became irony, ever louder swelled
a to uncanny mirth, which threatened to shake the
very foundations of the whole structure of Stale
authority . .

. .m the provinces, among the peasants,
laughter went m a triumphal march through the
village streets, captured the market-places, and
began topress steadily forward towards the official
headquarters. . . .

‘. . the dreaded masters of the Red Kremlin

themselves trembled at this rising of laughers and
jokers. In order to prevent an elemental out-
burst of all-dissolving universal mirth and to de-
prive this grave danger of all significance, the au-
thorities hit on the clever idea of having recourse
to an old institution, which has always been m-

265

PALEFACE

separably bound up with despotism, the office of
the court fool. By this means the powers effect-
ively took the initiative m this mockery of un-
popular institutions and guided it into the right
path. . . .

*. . . the old court fool was transformed into
a circus clown and from the ring amused the
people with his malicious jokes.

"... “Bim” and “Bom” were the names of
the two “merry councillors” of the new tsar, the
Mass man; they alone among the hundred mil-
lions of Russians were granted the right to express
their opinions freely; they might mock, criticize,
and deride the rulers at a time when the most
rigorous persecution and terrorism prevailed
throughout the whole country. Bun and Bom
had received a special permit from the Soviets to
express openly everything which was current
among the people m a secret and threatening A\*ay,
and thus to provide an outlet for latent rancour.
Every evening, the thousand-headed Mass man,
fawned upon by the whole eourt, sat m the circus
and listened eagerly to the slanderous speeches of
the two clowns Bim and Bom. In the midst of
grotesque aerobatics and buffooneries, amid jokes
and play, these two were allowed to utter bitter
truths to which otherwise the ear of the ruler was
angrily shut.

‘The circus in which Bim and Bom performed
was crowded night after night to the farthest
limits: people came from far and wide to hear
Bim and Bom, who soon became star clowns.
Them jokes were the daily talk of Moscow. One

266

BLACK LAUGHTER IN RUSSIA

person told them to another, until finally l he
whole town knew the latest insults winch these
two fools had permitted themselves to make.

‘In the dark penod of militant communism,
people were particularly under the sp< 11 of 1 he two
clowns; at that lime, the loose jokes to which Bun
and Bom Heated them with untiring energy were*
the one respite from the continuous pressure oi
force and tyranny, the only possibility of hearing
open criticism and tnoekeiv of the ruler, the Mass
man. People abandoned I hemseh es \ olupt u-
ously to these precious moments of mlelli dual
freedom.

( In spite of then impudent criticisms. Bun and
Bom won tu vert heless one ot the duel supports
of the Bolshevik regime: the universal discontent
would have burst all bounds if it had not been
dissolved in harmless mirth bv tin two clowns.
But, however biting might be the satire of Bim
and Bom, the Government could rely on their
nevci overstepping the limits of the permissible*,
for Bun and Bom were completely trustworthy
members of the Communist Parly, and at the
bottom of their hearts loyal servants of their
masters. They understood how to draw tin*
fangs of the seemingly most malicious jest before
they let it loose in tin* ring Their attacks were
never directed against the whole, bni only against
details, are! thus they contrived to divert atten-
tion from essentials. Besides, every one of their
jokes contained a hidden warning to the laughter
lovers: “Take care. Look out, we know you ! We
are aw r are* of what > ou are thinking ancWechng * ” ’

267

PALEFACE

I do not suggest that there is any resemblance
between the Black Laughter of Mr. Anderson’s negro
servants and the official laughter of the Soviet
clowns. The poor little provincial Whites of the
american story have not the pow r er of life and death
over their negro servants. They do not go down
into the kitchen beforehand and arrange what the
Black clown shall laugh at and what lie shall spare.
The poor little White is at the mercy of lus dark
‘inferior,’ his traditional sense of ‘superiority’
dwindling every da\ . but of course, since he is not
in reality superior, he should not have a Black ser-
vant, then he wouldn't be laughed at.

The Soviet clowns were apparently rather like
members of Mr. Henry Ford’s propaganda depart-
ment, which is supposed to have invented all the
terms, such as ‘Tin Lizzy/ Flying Bedstead/ and
so on, that are thrown at the Ford ear. Such an
official, carefully regulated safety-valve is the great-
est advertisement for the thing ‘attacked.’ It is
like the jokes about the Scotchman’s meanness,
which (I am glad to say) endear the Scot to all
Britons.

The kind of black la ugh In 1 have been considering
all along is of quite a different character from that.
It, too, of course, describes itself as mnucuuiis. The
White is flatteringly assured that he is such a very
secure Big While Chief that he can afford to become
the laughing-stock of the rest of the world. But in
practice that flattering picture is proved to be un-
true. The account of the Black Laughter m Russia
contains some apt instruction for us, if w r e can bring
ourselves to be attentive to it.

268

WHITE LAUGHTER

§ 14. White Laughter .

There is nothing today lor us to laugh about, it
is true. Bernard Shaw and Company laughed all
the tune. A merry twinkle was ne\er out of their
eye. llappy sunny White children of long ago!
But their laughter was the opposite of what ours
should be. They laughed ever m) genially over
things that, unfortunately, we can no longu ajjord
to laugh at: today w ( are all, actually or potentially.
Poor Whites. The prosperity even of America is a
very precarious tiling as most Ameiicans today
realize.

Few people, as yet, even, understand that we can
no longer alford to laugh in that sense. Nine people
out ol ten live in the past: they are aware that
‘things have changed,’ but they do not realize very
clearly in what speeilic way . They are ereat arcs of
habit : they go on laughing as formeily, at the same
things, as though the same things were there, and as
though tin* Euiopean were in the same place. This
really tragic sloth, and unwillingness to admit any-
thing unpleasant, of the Many, is our main difficulty
m proposing a change of orientation for our satire,
or indeed m proposing a realistic eliort of any sort*
The Present can only be icvcaled to people when U has
become Yesterday . Another way of putting this is
that people are historically -minded, and this, again
and again, must be stressed. It is by taking ad-
vantage of this human peculiarity that the politician
invariably operates, and brings otf his most tragic
coups. The bovarysme of man is as nothing com-
pared to this trait (unless you take it aif a depart-

269

PALEFACE

mcnf of bovarysmc) — namely, that Man is an animal
that believes he is living m a different time to what
m fact he is. So it is that a firm and concrete,
totally unromantic, realization of the mam features
of the Present, gives the man possessing it enormous
advantages over others. It is, as it were, the hypo-
thetic ground of the lever of Archimedes, when he
said of his le\er, ‘Give me somewhere to rest it, and
I will move the world.’

Bernard Shaw and Ins light-hearted fahian ehums
laughed at their own kind. In those remote days
their kind was all-powerful. That kind is vs. The
White is still, in appearance, where he was: but he
is not powerful: he has no triumphant world, all of
his own kind, behind him. We have all, less than
a decade ago, issued from a uar with each other — in
which we all lost. We are surrounded by prophets
announcing our doom. Our commerce, naturally,
has languished and shrunk. It is a very different
scene, m short, from that of merry, play-boy social-
ism, mischievously disporting itself m the midst of
that power and plenty of the Victorian Age.

But even that laughter, in its time, was foolish
and ill-advised, as, earlier in the Nineteenth Century,
were the romantic re\olutionary tirades of Shelley
and Byron. The Emuuiit Victorian*, and their in-
stitutions, could not, m their day, afford to be
laughed at as they permit ted everybody to do. The
proof of the w eakness of t he racial policy of the White
Overlord (simply taking him as an overlord and as-
suming that it was his policy to remain that m some
form or other, his lutheran conscience permitting) is
to be react in the light of his present position.

270

WHITE LAUGHTER

Today wo should not give up our laughter : for the
White Man knows how to laugh, and the Anglo-
Saxon has a kind of genius for it. But we should
develop another form of laughter. We should make
a more practieal use of I his great force, and not treat
it as an lriesporisiblc, mischievous luxurv. Other
peoples, their habits, their faces, their institutions,
are just as ridiculous as ours. It is a little over-
Christian to he this perpetual, ‘dignified ’ butt ! But
it is no use at all for our laughter to he of that easy,
‘kindlj * schoolboy variety, that merely endears the
people laughed at to the lookers-on. WV are not
laughed at in that manner. There is nothing of the
advertisement-value of that kind of laughter m the
Black Laughter or Red Laughter directed at us.

So let ns get a point into our new laughter, if we
are going to have it at all. Do not let us fear to
hurt people’s feelings by our laughter, since v f c may
depend on it they will not spare ours. Nothing can
help us so much as to develop tlm type of laughtei.

Let the usual Black Laughter, or Red Laughter ,
directed at us, go on : but let it become a thing of the
past for us to remain as its annahle, accommodating,
and self-abasing butts.

We can even dispense with the musical arpeggios
of laughter itself: let us rather meet with the slight-
est smile all those things that so far we have received
with delirious rapture — first, at all events, until we
are sure of them. All this frantically advertised
welter of ideas that pour over us from all sides, from
nowhere, let us above all, at last meet that as it
should be met. Do not let us spring up and pro-
strate ourselves every half-minute, as tlie latest

271

PALEFACE

ambassador arrives with News from Nowhere, with
an auctioneer’s clatter. Let us remain seated, the
feminine privilege : let us smile sceptically, also the
feminine privilege : let us insist upon every feminine
privilege : let us be faultlessly polite, or rather over-
polite, crudely polite : let us show tln^ political tout,
dressed up as a wise man from the East, that we
have expected him, that we should only have been
surprised if he had not turned up : that we hope lie
soon will go. That is the only way to treat the
Thousand and One Magi and Chaldeans who suc-
cessively rattle our knocker.

272

A FINAL PROPOSAL
A MODEL ‘ MELTING-POT ’

T HERE are, m the specifically moral nature of
the situation in which we find ourselves, fac-
tors that I do not propose, to investigate.
There is the contradictory spectacle, which we can
all observe, of our institutions, as they dehumanize
themselves, clothing themselves more and more, and
with a hideous pomposity, with the stuff of morals —
that stuff of which the pagan world was healthily
ignorant, in ils physical expansiveness and instinct
for a concrete truth, and which, for the greatest
peoples of the East, has never existed except as a
purely political systematization of something irre-
trievably inferior, a sentimental annexe of a meta-
physical truth. It is natural that ‘the Congo’
should ‘flood the Acropolis’ (though I am not sure
that I did not misunderstand the Princess) when we
see the attitudes of Renaissance culture, as illus-
trated by the great french stylists, being subtly
combined with the militant emotional gloom of the
Salvation Army : v\ lien t he Sa 1 vation Army marches
weeping, in jazz-step, into the study of Montesquieu,
then the crocodiles are on their way to Ilellas.

What I shall especially neglect is to analyse the
artificial character of this puritanic gloom, settling
m a dense political f moke-screen about us, gushed
from both official and unofficial reservoirs. I shall
confine myself to remarking that the person who
meets all these sham glooms with an anguished De

273

s

PALEFACE

Proiundis 9 instead of a laugh (however unpleasant),
is scarcely wise, though he may be good. To see a
vineyard in the sun surrounded by armed federal
officers of the law. who prevent anybody from taking
the grapes and making them into wmc, is absurd,
more than anything else. Foodstuffs rotting upon
the quays while people arc 1 starving, is a fact that
should be met, if at all, not by stylistic theologic
melancholy, that seems obvious. Or again, the
abstruse principles of the manufacture of paper-
money, like the arbitrary non-manufacture of a
healthy and pleasant wmc, and all that results from
one as from the other — of gloom and a sense of the
difficulty of everything — this is not the material for
profound heart-searching groans, although that is
the correct unofficial response, it is true. But a
reader of this book will be left with those sums or
equations on lus hands, to work out or not, as he
may feed inclined. I have made it clear, T think,
how the ethical , introduced into the physical pro-
blem of the Melting-pot, produces a gloomy and
passionate infusion : that is all I set out to do. With
a definite proposal, one that has been made often
before by many people, 1 will bring this essay to a
dose.

In America the expression Mdtmg-pot has been
coined to describe the assimilation of european
nationalities in the United States, and now of the
negro population, ten million strong, which has
begun m earnest. In Europe we have no such ex-
pression, for the excellent reason that there is no
assimilation in progress. If the United States pos-
sessed fixed areas m which Danes, Spaniards, Ger-

274

A MODEL ‘MELTING-POT’

mans, Negroes, Irish and so forth were segregated,
as we are, each settled m certain slates, with fortified
frontiers, taught only their mother-tongue and un-
able to converse with tin inhabitants of the next
state, then there would lie no Melting-pot there
either. America without its Melting-pot would
simply be another Europe, plus a Black Belt and a
few Chinatowns.

There is a radical contradiction between the curo-
pean and ameriean way of regarding this problem.
Perhaps because it is so much taken lor granted,

1 his difference passes for the most part unnoticed by
us. Whereas the rulers of America are committed
to fusion (liowt ver dissimilar the racial stocks) m
one form or another, in Europe the question does
not even arise. Since the French live upon one side
of the Rhine and Lhe Germans upon the other, or the
English and the French upon opposite sides of the
English Channel, there is no ‘problem’ as to their
mixing: indeed the great majority of Germans or
Frenchmen or Englishmen never set a member of
the neighbour-nation except during such times as
their respective governments decide appropriate for
a mass-mei ting, as it were, and they are despatched
to kill one another with bomb and bayonet. Even
then it is only the infantry w'lio see members of the
‘enemy’ nation at all distinctly: and it is possible
for an infantryman to pass many months in the Line
without catching sight of more than a few of his
european neighbours, and these mostly dead speci-
mens, or even nothing more than their facetious
skeletons.

Of these two attitudes — the melting andAhc non-
275

PALEFACE

melting — the American appears to me by far the
better : I am heart and soul upon the side of the Melt-
ing-pot, not upon that of the Barbed Wire. That is
why 1 have called this book ‘The Ethics of the Melt-
ing-pot,’ and not ‘The Ethics of the Barbed Wire.’
But what a terribly sad thing it us to reflect that
literally millions of Basques, Finns, Scotsmen,
Danes, Normans, Prussians, Swiss, should be kept
rigidly apart while in Europe, bv the intensive per-
petuation of purely historical frontiers (which the
Versailles Treaty has made even more numerous and
complicated than before), whereas if they emigrate
to America they are liable suddenly to be hectored
for an opposite reason — namely because they show
some slight compunction in coupling with a jet-
black Kaffir. Personally I consider that they are
quite wrong in looking down upon the transplanted
Kaffir: but it is far more stupid of them (if, say, a
Swede) to look dow n upon a lovely Basque, or (if a
Bavarian) to look down upon an industrious Gascon-
esse. Yet have they not always been taught to do
that, at least since the rise of the national idea m
Europe or since the time of the great religious
schisms?

My own view is that the Melting-pot should be set
up in Europe, upon tin spot. Instead of posters on
our walls which say ‘ Join the Royal Air Force and
See the World,’ there should be posters (and offices
in every district to deal with applicants) saying,

‘ Marry a Swiss and See the World,’ or, more jocularly,
‘Get spliced to a Finn, and Get About.’

What can there be against it, except that it would
be impossible to have wars any more in Europe ? If

276

A MODEL 4 MELTING-POT 1

it is objected that there is no unifying principle in
Europe to compare with americanization , it is neces-
sary to recall that only five centuries ago the whole
of Europe possessed one soul m a more fundamental
way than America can he said to at this moment,
and the actual appearance of its towns must lia\e
been at least as uniform as today (and that is very
uniform), though m a more agreeable fashion. As
to the individuals of the various races, there is no
obstacle there. In the valleys of the Pyrenees, for
instance, you meet with a great many people physic-
ally as like as two eggs to the inhabitant of Devon-
shire, Derby, Limerick, or Caithness : a swiss peasant
woman is »n character and physical appearance often
so identical with a Swedish, cnglish, german, or
fiench girl, that they might be twin sisters. Tins
everyone must have remarked who has ever travelled
to those countries. It has always been fratricidal
that these people should be taught to disembowel,
blind and poison each other on the score of their
quite imaginary "deferences* of blood or mind, but
t oday there is less exeusi for it than ever before . So
why not a Melti ng-pot '* — instead of more and more
intensive discouragement of such a fusion. Europe
is not so very large: why should it not have one
speech like China and acquire one government ?

But feeling about Europe in that manner, and all
too familiar with that situation, the spectacle of the
rather feverish opposite to that attitude, wherever
these same Europeans leave their countries and live in
the proximity of people so different from themselves
as the Negroes or the Chinese, cannot* but occur to
one as a very sudden and from some points*of view

277

PALEFACE

unsatisfactory reversal. On the one hand you have
too absolute a segregation, on the other too absolute
a freedom to mix. America is the child of Europe
entirely, except for the Negroes and m Mexico and
south of Panama the Indians, and the two problems
should not be dissociated. What happens to
Europe is of great importance to America, and vice
versa — what happens to America, that othcr-Europe,
must be of great moment to us.

This essay is much more to propose that we set up
a Melting-pot in Europe — which would be as it were
a Model Melting-pot, not at the boiling-pomt but
cooking at a steady rati* day in day out — than to
venture any criticism of the principle underlying the
amcncan or afnean Melting-pot or, alternatively.
Colour Line. Indeed a quite irrational attitude is
often adopted by the American to miscegenation.
Another factor of ‘inferiority’ feeling has its roots
m a profound misunderstanding of the true sifua-
tion. The American is apt to accept the false euro-
pean attitude towards ‘race,’ as it is called. It is a
common experience m talking to Americans to hear
some magnificent human specimen (who is obviously
the issue of say a lhst-ciass Swede and a magni-
ficent Swissess, with a little Irish and a touch of
Basque) refer tu himself a ‘m^ngicl.’ It is in-
conceivable, yet indeed that is how such a ‘mixed’
product is apt to look upon this superb marriage of
Scandinavian, Goth and Celt — all stocks as closely
related in blood — if it is ‘ blood Jiat is the trouble —
as the brahmanic caste of India. Merely physically
this epithet is given the he : for all you have to do is
to look at this sterling type of ‘ mixed ’ American to

278

A MODEL ‘ MELTING-POT ’

admire the purity Qf line and fine adjustment achieved
by the conjunction of these sister stocks. Far from
being a ‘mongrel/ of course, he is a sort of super-
Europcan: the best of several closely allied stock*
have met m him, in exactly the same way as was
constantly happening in the noble curopean families
— where the issue of a marriage between nobles,
whether from England and Italy or Spain and Russia,
did not constitute a ‘half-breed/ but rather a more
exalted feudal product, so subtly ‘mixed/

Some racial mixtures are not so fortunate as
others, however, it is necessary to allow: the Indian
and spamsh mixtures, in say Peru or Mexico, have
not proved really very good. The Barber of Seville
that peeps through the Inca removes him from
Mozart, and yet does not make a good Indian of him,
though there arc exceptions. But practically all
europcan intermarriage presents no problem at all,
and is indeed politically much to be desired, as
certain to abolish the fiction of our frontiers and the
fiction of the ‘necessity* of war. The asiatic ele-
ments in Southern Spain, Italy and Russia aside, the
European is as much of one blood as are the in-
habitants of the British Isles, and in many instances
more so — for instance the Bavarian and the lowland
Scotch are man for man as nearly one race (to look
at them, as well as m their character) as you could
find anywhere at all. If they spoke a common Ido
the Austrian with his Spiclhahnfeder and Eichcnlaub
stuck m his Steierhnt would melt into the Crofter
without noticing he had left his native village.

But (until they reach America, and all have to
speak english, or, in Latin -America, spamsh) the

279

PALEFACE

great difficulty is language. In discussing such a
question as this we always get back to the problem
of Babel. It is m the* interest of the Melting-pot
that every European should wish to learn Volapuc
as I do, or to ha\e some language picked for him
that it shall be agreed all shall speak and that he can
easily learn and speak— woo his possibly distant
bride m, and talk over all those subjects of common
interest with lus brother at the other extremity of
Europe, which since the decay of latin as a universal
tongue no one has been able to do. I cannot ima-
gine any person in Europe who, when the matter was
presented to him in that light, would not plump for
some Volapuc: but if there is anvwliere a person
who would not, lunv slender Ins reasons must be
compared to those a Dutchman say in Africa could
allege for refusing to mate his daughter with a Cape-
Black or a settler from the Dekkan ! And yet even
the Dutchman would not be right, would he? — how'
much more wrong then would not the man m Europe
be who stood out, for in fifty per cent, of the cases he
would be vetoing a closer match than could be made
even in the honic-\ llluge at any given time — for I
would guarantee to match a young man in a Devon
village better m the Canton of Berne than would be
possible probably, at any given moment, m lus own
cnglish district .

On the other hand if the Dutchman in Africa had
ten daughters and seized the other end of the stick
(after a reading of Plomer) so fanatically as to pester
them all to choose upou the spot a Black bridegroom,
that would be a sentimental extreme that it would
be perhaps allowable to deplore: if he should em-

280

A TVIODEL ‘MELTING-POT’

hellish his persuasiveness with highly-coloured abuse
of all owners of a pale skin, then he would definitely
become irritating and perhaps even absurd, and if
his ten girls took him and flogged him no one could
find it m his heart to bliimc them, though if called to
a Grand Jury it would be necessary to send the
whole of the ten girls to jail of course, for they should
not, strictly speaking, flog their father, either, how-
ever misguided, as potentially Ins whiteness would
be the symbol of their consanguinity and the ulti-
mate reason for their objecting to the break-up of
their pigment. Tins last illustration touches upon
a complexity which (m rare instances, so far) quali-
fies the absolute simplicity of tins question — the
problem of the gaga Paleface Papa who reads Plomer
or Du Bois. But — as I have prophesied —he w r ill bo
dealt with by Ins children or grandchildren, when he
disinherits them and lea\es all Ins money to the
fctaiale Kaffir cook.

What m these concluding page'* it has been mv
intention to stress is that the (icry ethics of the Melt-
ing-pot are eonjunctly european and protestant m
origin more than anything else (though the gallic in-
vention of the ‘great nation’ plays its part as well).
The fanatical ill-temper and the black intolerance
that accompany the discussion and propaganda for
‘race-fusion’ can be traced to those* sources, when
they cannot be directly traced to the equally intem-
perate ethical zeal of the ‘radicahst’ righteousness.

At this time the Anglo-Saxon is no longer para-
mount in North America: but his language is still
the general speech, and american civilization is m its
main principles anglo-saxon. The alternation of

281

PALEFACE

emotional indulgence in liberalist programmes (and
anglo-saxon ‘radicalism 9 is newer and more heated
liberalism, merely) and unintelligent race-prejudice,
with which distressing see-saw we are so familiar, is
anglo-saxon, is it not ? Neither the Spanish, Portu-
guese nor French as colonists have handled their
respective Melting-pot m that manner. The latin
tradition, more tolerant, catholic and mature, has
not sentimentalized about the deeply-pigmented
skin, nor fixed upon it, on the other hand, a
stigma. You would not be so likely to get adepts
of jazz in a Black Belt m a latin land, nor the fer-
ocity of lynching neighboured by anti- White tracts,
written by Whites, nor a universal thunder of
psalms from Black and White throats mixed, and
evangelist extremes of intolerance and hysterical
expansion — it would be more likely you would find
a firmer attitude, more satisfactory to both sides,
far less superstitious, m the Latin.

Yet, although it is necessary to fix, for any such
survey, the anglo-saxon responsibilities, they are
not all anglo-saxon, and the nationalism of Europe
as a whole is to blame, I think, both for the excesses
of the ‘Nordic Blondes 9 or what Mencken calls tht
‘Ofays,’ where they occur, and for the excesses of
their satirists and del rat tors. Must wc not agree
that it is the artificial principle of europcan separa-
tism (of all the Irelands, Ulsters, Catalomas, Pol-
ands, Czecho-Slovakias and the rest) transplanted
to America or Africa, that, there, is apt to issue in a
quite new form m a hotbed of separatist, or of fusion-
ist, passion — which in the near future may wreck
those societies as it is wrecking ours?

282

A’ MODEL ‘ MELTING-POT !

If (to show my enthusiasm for fusion) I may allow
myself a strikingly mixed metaphor, u is at the
fountain-head that we should establish our Melting-
pot — an example to all other Melting-pots. And it
is here in Europe that we should start a movement
at once for the miscegenation of Europeans — with
each oiheu that is- -Asia and Africa could be con-
sidered later, no doubt, for incorporation in our
Model Melting-pot.

I have dealt with this subject before, but in
another connection, in The Lion and the Fox : I
would refer the reader to pages 205-320 of that
essay. There the problem of the Melting-pot as it
applies — or rather as it docs not appty — to England,
was discusst d at length, particularly as if concerns
the ‘Saxon’ and the ‘Celt/ The ‘Celt,’ I there
demonstrated, was a complete myth: and I showed
how, with a great deal of wit, Matthew Arnold, who
was probably aware of the shadowy nature of his
‘Celt/ staged an ironical drama for the John Bulls
and Fenian Paddies of his time. I w ill quote a few
lines from Chapter VI., Part IX., in which 1 lay bare
the full w'orkmg of Arnold's ironical vision. I say—
‘From the treacherous polished surface of
Arnold’s prose (its body clouded for its reception)
I w T ill now expiscate that laughing idea which we
have been preparing to examine. It is the idea of
two island neighbours and strongly hallucinated
brethren, the Irishman and the Englishman, the
Celt and the Teuton (both m the baleful ‘grip’ of
‘celtisni/ which stands between them and success
m science, or any exact, unemotional study), in-
volved in a curious fratricidal strife a«d tangle of

283

PALEFACE

romantic misunderstandings. . . . Arnold is not
himself’ (I add) ‘at all the dupe of the “celtic”
notion: his whole essay is written to expose it.
Yet he accepts the conventional nomenclature of
‘Celt’ for all that type of expression and senti-
ment that had been popularized under that name.’

And I then quote him, where he says, apropos of
this famous ‘Celtisni’:

‘Nay, perhaps, if we are doomed to perish
(Heaven avert the omen!) we shall perish by our
Celtism, by our self-will and want of patience with
ideas, our inability to see the way the world is
going; and yet those very Celts, by our affinity
with whom we are perishing, will be hating and
upbraiding us all the time.’

It is generally forgotten that Ireland was colon-
ized, especially in the east, by the Norsemen, nor-
wegian being spoken m Dublin, as it was in Bristol,
until the fourteenth century. That famous ‘celtic’
literary buccaneer, Mr. Bernard Shaw r , is no doubt
a typical Norseman, as to stock at least. And m
the essay from winch 1 have just quoted I illustrate d
(page 322) the upshot of all this m the following
fashion, Irom an average experience of inv own,
which I am sure many people could match Here
is what I wrote : —

‘During the martyrdom of the Mayor of Cork
I had several opportunities of seeing consider-
able numbers of Irish people demonstrating among
the London crowds. I was never able to dis-
cover which were Irish and which were English,

284

A MODEL 4 MELTING-POT *

however. They looked to mo exactly the same.
With the best will in the world to discriminate the
orderly groups of demonstrators from the orderly
groups of spectators, and to satisfy the romantic
proprieties on such an occasion, my eyes icfused
to effect the necessary separation, that the prin-
ciple of “celtism’ demanded, into chalk and
cheese. I should have supposed that they w r cre
a lot of romantic english-people pretending to be
lrish-people, and demonstrating w r ith the assist-
ance of a few priests and pipers, if it had not been
that they all looked extremely depressed, and
english-people when they are giving romance the
rein are ahvaj s very elated *

It is singular I hat from the time of Arnold's Celtic
Literatuie to that of The Lion and the Fas there
should have been nobody in England to deled this
colossal anomaly — there where there lane been so
many people to foment, or (upon the other side) to
take quite seriously, th* Irish Separatist passion.
The fact is that it has always paid the Irish indi-
vidually too well, to allow them to laugh at it
(though now it is all over they are beginning to do
so, witness Mr. Hernard Shaw m his article in Time
and Tide , Dec. 1928): and the english politician in
every case found Ireland such an uncomfortable
problem that he w r as in no mood to relish the farce
that might lie hidden under these disturbances.

That will terminate for the present what I have
to say upon this difficult subject. A Volapuc for
Europe and an internationally organized Melting-
pot/ a general international exchange s>f workers

285

PALEFACE

and of women or men, an official Marriage Bureau,
with photographs and pedigrees and all those certi-
ficates that arc 4 indispensable in such a case — ar-
rangements with the republics of America to adopt
our particular Volapuc — that is the idea, in its
brutal outline. I will not work it out further until
I hear what response* the public makes to my sug-
gestions, not only because that would be otiose,
seeing the passionate atmosphere of jingo ideology
that prevails at the moment, but because I am not
so well qualified as many other people to draw up a
practical scheme. Hut I shall be extremely happy
to get in touch with any experts who arc so quali-
fied, and to offer them what merely theoretic assist-
ance lies m my power.

286

APPENDIX

Note. — This review of Miss Mayo’s Mother India
appeared in Enemy No. 2 m Tt is reprinted here
without alteration, as an indirect contribution to
the discussions conducted in Paleface

APPENDIX

MOTHER INDIA

T HIS very much discussed book breaks a depth -
record , as it were : it unerringly sinks to a level
of vulgar untruth that should make it a para-
gon of its kind. Miss Mayo is, therefore, to be con-
gratulated: she has achieved what I feel she has in-
tended; she has left an appreciably greater mess
behind her in the world, oi that part where she
operates, than was there already, and has sent up an
appreciable distance the international tension and
fever. She has had the satisfaction of insulting
three hundred million people : and should it be that
three hundied million of her ancestors sustained in-
sults. or one of her most prominent ancestors three
hundred million insults, this should do something
towards wiping that out. (Such fantastic assump-
tions come to your mind : for what can make a
person want to write such a book?) There have
already been mass meetings of protest in India.
Her little book is assured of its place in the pantheon
of Ilate.

Its main argument leads the reader at once, with
a firm matter-of-fact step, into the region of sex:
and with a hand accustomed to the licences of the
hospital, a few intimate physiological particulars are
brusquely laid bare, just to put the reader m a good
humour.

The argument is this : owing, says Miss Mayo, to
then premature sex-life, all the inhabitants^ India

T 289

PALEFACE

are ‘degenerate’ — quite the opposite of us. ‘At
about eight years old the Indian male child is apt to
be hired out to prostitution,’ she says. ‘The little
boy ... is likely, if physically attractive, to be
drafted for the satisfaction of grown men, or to be
regularly attached to a temple, in the capacity of a
prostitute. Neither parent, as a rule, sees any harm
in this.’ Indeed the Indian mother, according to
this lady, is addicted to practices all her own. ‘So
far are they from seeing good or evil, as we see good
and evil, that the mother, high caste or low caste,
will practise upon her children — the girl “to make
her sleep well,” the boy “to make him manly,” an
abuse which the boy, at least, is apt to continue
daily for the rest of his life.’ (The ‘at least’ is a
curious clause.) Marriages between the immature
is another feature of the picture. If, at eight years
old, the boy is not ‘attractive’ presumably, his
parents look round for a wife of his own age. So in
that case between eight and fourteen he marries:
but fourteen is late. Once married, being, of course,
of an unbelievably degenerate stock, or else syphil-
itic, he is found to be barren. No one is surprised.
Usually the child-wife, in that case, is sent to a
neighbouring temple for the night, where a priest
can be relied on not to dismiss her without a fair
prospect of a child, if he know's his business and likes
the look of the girl. For there are a few, a very few,
undegenerate Indians, they become priests.

So it is with no surprise that you learn — or ‘after
the rough outline just given, small surprise will meet
the statement that from one end of the land to the
other the average male Hindu of thirty years . . .

290

MOTHER INDIA

is an old man : and that from seven to eight out of
every ten such males between the ages of twenty-
five and thirty are impotent.’

That is the sad tale of ‘ sex * that this writer, whose
indignation and the form it has taken have sold a
great many copies of her book, has to tell. That
leprous thing — India — that provoked her to put all
this down, she tells us, is such a gigantic menace to
the United States that it would ‘seem to deprive one
of the right to indulge a personal reluctance to incur
consequences.’ So, deprived of all rights, with the
air of a Christian martyr, Miss Mayo goes manfully
on, and throws Ganges mud at the great Indian
people, ridicules tlieir religion (what is hers?), and
quotes to support her statements the Abbd Dubois.
The Abba’s book, as indicated by her in a footnote,
is Hindu, Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Claren-
don Press, 1921.

‘Of all the readers of Mother India how many arc
likely to know anything about the Abbe Dubois?
One m a hundred may, but that is not probable.
Yet it is, of course, a very well known and exceed-
ingly interesting book, and most students of anthro-
pology are familiar with it . Should Miss Mayo not
point out, when she first quotes him in her account of
her mdian trip last year, that he died in 1848 — in-
stead of leaving it ‘Clarendon Press, 1924,’ and re-
ferring later on, in passing, to the fact that the evid-
ence of the Abbe Dubois dates from ‘the Nineteenth
Century’? He is actually her main source of in-
formation : he is quoted on pages 31, 37, 73, 75, 119,
143, 165 and 204. No other authority is drawn
upon to this extent. Some of the most ‘ sqpsational ’

291

PALEFACE

matter of her book comes out of this text-book of
the anthropology of British India. That, for ex-
ample, is the case with the story about the Indian
child- wives who go to the temples, if barren, and
who are accommodated bv the priests. The ac-
count given by the Abbe Dubois m Hindu Manners
and Customs is as follows : Miss Mayo does not quote
it, it is her custom to paraphrase, so as to make it
seem more actual, probably, and more like her own;
but, whatever the reason, it is a habit that breeds
confusion, unfortunate m the circumstances.

‘Expert at reaping protit from the virtues as
well as the vices of their countrymen, the Brah-
mins sec m these touching impulses of nature
merely a means of gaming w caltli, and also at the
same time an opportunity of satisfying their
carnal lusts with impunity. There are few temples
where the presiding deity docs not claim the power
of curing barrenness in women. ... On their
arrival, the women hasten to disclose the object of
their pilgrimage to the Bralmnns, the managers of
the temple. The latter advise them to pass the
night m the temple, where, they say, the great
Venkateswara, touched by their devotion, will
perhaps visit them in the spirit and accomplish
that which until then has been denied to them
through human power. I must draw a curtain
over the sequel of this deceitful suggestion. The
reader already guesses at it. The following morn-
ing these detestable hypocrites, pictendmg com-
plete ignorance of what has passed, make due
enquiries into all details; and after having con-
gratulated the women upon the reception they

292

MOTHER INDIA

mot with from the god, receive the gifts with which
they have provided themselves, and take leave of
them. . . .’ (Hindu Manners, etc., p. 59 i.)

It should be said that the well-known book of the
Abbe Dubois is written m a very different tone as
touching the Indian people from that of Miss Mayo.
But then, as Dr. Max Muller writes, the views of the
Abbe Dubois were those of ‘a scholar wutli sufficient
knowledge, if not of Sanscrit, yet of Tamil, . . . to be
able to enter into the view’s of the natives, to under-
stand their manners and customs, and to make
allowance for many of their superstitious opinions
and practices, as mere corruptions of an originally
far more rational and intelligent form of religion and
philosophy.’

It is a quarrel between priests m the ease of the
Abb6 Dubois. For was not this catholic priest m
the Dekknn in order to get converts to Christianity?
Naturally as a catholic priest he would not give a
very glowing account of the Brahmin, his profes-
sional rival. Nor would it be at all likely that his
account of the Indian cults would be exactly propa-
ganda for them, nor that he w r ould compare them
favourably with Ins own ‘shop.’ But m his treat-
ment of the Indian people there is no trace of the
Mayo attitude

In a prefatory note to Hindu Manners and Cus-
toms^ Dr. Max Muller writes as follows: —

‘ It is difficult to believe that the Abb6 Dubois,
the author of Moeurs, Institutions et CMmonies
des peuples de TInde , died in only 1848. By his
position as a scholar and as a student of Indian

298

PALEFACE

subjects, he really belongs to a period previous to
the revival of Sanscrit studies in India. ... I
had no idea, when in 1840 I was attending in
Paris the lectures of Eugene Burnouf at the College
dr France, that the old Abbe was still living and in
full activity as Direct etir des Missions Etr anger es,
and I doubt whether even Burnouf himself was
aware of his existence m Paris. The Abb£ be-
longs really to the eighteenth century, but as there
is much to be learnt even from such as Roberto
de’ Nobili, who went to India in 160C ... so
again the eighteenth century was by no means
devoid of eminent students of Sanscrit, of Indian
religion, and Indian subjects in general. It is
true that in our days their observations and re-
searches possess chiefly a historical interest. . . .’

This note of Dr. Max Muller’s was not written
yesterday; but for him, even, the Hindu Manner S,
Customs and Ceremonies ‘possess chiefly a historical
interest.’

Under these circumstances, and since no one could
pretend that Mother India was intended for any-
thing but a large popular Public very unlikely evui
to have heard of the Abb<5 Dubois, or at all likely to
refer to his w’ork, would it not have been more
honest, m quoting the Abbd* Dubois, to explain all
this to the reader, instead of merely giving the refer-
ence, with the name of the Clarendon Press, and the
date 192 /f. ? But apart from that, was it honest at
all to mingle the ‘eighteenth century’ information
of this authority with gossip of today, and a few
facts hastily gathered in a short tour?

294

• MOTHER INDIA

Again there is the fact that the information taken
from the eighteenth century account of the Abb£
Dubois is not necessarily quoted m his words. It is
(pp. 36-37, Mother India) mixed up with material
from Young India , Sept. ?, 1UVG, and that of other
unspecified sources, and so recounted by the author
as though all part of one story, in the result making
the eighteenth century generalizations of the Abb6
Dubois appear something that had happened yester-
day.

There is no indication at all that its writer is any-
thing but a \er> clever, able and practised person; she
knows quite well that what she gives is not evidence :
that it is presented in such a wav as to be violently
offensn e on every ground to the Hindu (she favours
strangely the Mohammadan): she cannot fail to see
that in an insidious manner it puts the British
Government of India m the position of a machia-
vellian power, leaving the unfortunate Indian alone
m lus apparently unexampled depravity and squalor
(all the men sexually impotent and broken at
twenty-live \ears old — the average age of demise
23, etc. etc.), whereas she, no doubt, has more than
enough political intelligence to be aware that should
the English lea\ e India tomorrow the Soviet would
quietly walk m, if they are not practically there
already; and a little compassion for the Indian
(which she does not possess — nothing but the affect-
ation of the fury of a kind of mad sanitary inspector)
would save her from contemplating that particular
change of masters for even such reptiles, ‘slaves/
perverted heathens, morons and masturbators, as
she complacently describes: she knows that her

295

PALEFACE

inflammatory gibes about ‘slave psychology’ ad-
dressed to the indian people is the material of
‘radical’ oratory or of nationalist spread-eagleism
such as no european public would swallow today,
since they have found out that they are not, them-
selves, so peculiarly ‘free,’ and that as to ‘slave-
psychology’ people who Vve in glass-houses, and so
on : and, finally, when she claims that the music of
the spinning wheel of Gandhi has been a mam in-
spiration to her m writing her book, she pollutes one
of the only saintly figures m the world; and it is
to be hoped that he will use all the lustrational re-
sources of his easte-traming to cleanse himself of any
traces left by the passage of Miss Mayo : also m con-
nection with Gandhi, she is not so naive as not to
know that her super-amencan gospel of dogmatic
modernist reform (or is it amencan, or rather should
Americans in general be held responsible for their
Mayos? I believe not) can scarcely be said to have
anything to do with what Gandhi teaches.

What particular demon actuates Miss Mayo? I
may go into that when I conic to use her book, along
with many others, as evidence m later parts of my
Paleface . But, now, I think, m mutation of the
Abb6 Dubois, I will at this point ‘draw a curtain ’over
Miss Mayo — not over her ‘daring’ or ‘outspoken’
bits about sex, heaven preserve us (Abb6 Dubois is
much more amusing, if that is what you want, and
there’s much more of it ), but — just over Miss Mayo.

But there is another thing that Mis< Mayo knows
— not quite to draw to the curtain. Miss Mayo
knows that if an indian lady journalist, for instance,
hurried to America on such a mission as Miss Mayo’s,

296

MOTHER INDIA

she could very easily draw an equally untruthful
picture. She knows this as well as I know similarly
that a visit to England or Germany could be made
into a Mother England or Mother Germany . Indet'd
no day passes but we are able in Europe to observe
this in practice: I refer to the accounts the Euro-
pean is fed with about Mother America , accounts
that arc intended to mak*' his llesh creep or his blood
boil. No picture done m that wav (an be true, of
course: and I am certainly the last person to lend
any credence to the stories of the Mother America
type. Miss Mayo, I am very sure, has nothing to do
with anything that wc should legitimately call
‘America.’ The Indian lady \isitor to the United
States, let us suppose, has arrived. She ‘ court -
eoush ’ requests to be ‘shown over,’ and m her book
she can say how very ‘courteous,’ at least (that looks
well, it shows how fair and unbiassed you arc), e\ try-
body was (how very stupidly courteous to such a
person she may privatelj reflect): and she could
(very easily) hav*‘ a remarkably ‘highly-placed
diplomatist’ or ‘a great inventor’ perhaps (that
would look well) always at her elbow, just as Miss
Mayo alw r ays has a particular ly ‘ high-caste Brahmin ’
at her elbow, to inform against other high -caste
Brahmins* the Indian lady visitor or inquisitor, the
‘restless analyst 5 from the East, could quote exten-
sively from some amenean equivalent of the Loom
oj Youth , and tell the horrified Indian Public how r in
all the schools and universities of the United States
homosexuality w r as rampant : then she could tell the
usual stories of pregnant high-school girls — reveal
whole classes carried away in one brake to theLying-

297

PALEFACE

in Hospital: she could state as a fact that all ameri-
can men were sexually impotent at thirty (hence the
Broadway girl-shows), and that self-abuse was in-
tense and universal throughout the 48 States of the
Union : she could describe the death-rate per day m
an amcncan city by violent crime, quote Mencken
for bits about the monstrosities of Prohibition : and
she could wind up by saying that America is ‘a
physical menace’ (of. p. 23, Mother India) to the
Hindu.

‘ Under present conditions of human activity,
whereby, whether we will or no, the roads that join
us to every part of the world continually shorten
and multiply, it would appear that some know-
ledge of mam facts concerning so big and to-day
so near a neighbour should be a part of our intelli-
gence and self-protection.’ ( Mother India, p. 20.)

The above italics are mine.

Or the Indian lady investigator might takeanother
line. ‘The average male Hmdu of thirty years . . .
is an old man,’ says Miss Mayo. But the Indian
visitor to the United States might describe herself
as astounded to find that at thirty years old the
White Man seemed no older than ‘our Indians’ at
eight, and. indeed, that that was the case at almost
anv age: she could remark thereupon that she
doubted, so childish were they (almost as though on
purpose, she might suggest), whether these ‘boy-
men’ had ever exercised their sexual nature at all,
or ever, properly speaking, reached puberty; and,
indeed, it was her belief that they never did, that
was what she thought about it, and that she sus-

298

MOTHER INDIA

pected them of pretending to be pederasts, very
often, only 1o rover this sexual apathy, and so as to
retain a sort of false, prolonged, childish immaturity,
and in order also to evade (much stiffening and ruf-
fling of Madras-suffragist indignation, here!) — crimi-
nally to evade their sexual duties; that as to the
amencan mothers, far fiom sitting by their daugh-
ters’ bedsides, and ‘helping them to get to sleep’ in
the mdian fashion, instead, these mothers put on
flesh-coloured tights and went and danced all night,
while their husbands stole out, gun m hand, and
went lynching Negroes in the next block.

All this the mdian ladv journalist could write to
her terrified, indignant, delighted countrymen and
country women. She could point out that now at
any moment Mr. Levine might be expected to ‘hop’
over to Mother India — or Miss Mayo, again, by way
of the air, for that matter -and heaven knows what
germs he (or she) would not bring from such a
country as the United States! She might suggest
that Gandhi be sent to see what could be done to
instil a certain sense of womanhood into these lo«d:
populations. Perhaps President Coolidge could be
persuaded to spin for a few hours every dav. But
at least Gandhi— -or perhaps the League of Nations?
— might dissuade the United States males from
abusing themselves, every day, at least.

And then, of course, she could quote Prescott’s
Conquest oj Mexico to give an idea of the soil of
blood-sacrifices currently perpetrated by the Ameri-
cans. This she could easily mix up with the Ku
Klux Klan, and say that they disembowelled fifty
Negroes a day in any fair-sized american city.

299

PALEFACE

This book she would call (in Tamil) Rail Columbia ,
Happy Land.

This is a sort of book, at all events, that you can’t
have enough of, both ways, and all ways. It pro-
motes that excellent feeling of brotherly love be-
tween nations and races that is so very useful and
comfortable for all of us.

300

INDEX

Alexander (Professor), 177
All God's Chilton* 58
Americana , 111, 113, 118, 11*3,
127-37, 188

American Mercury , 28, 113.
American Keqro (The), 28
Anderson (Dean Paul), 136
Andewon (Sherwood), 95, 97,
116-17, 126, 139, 144-7, 151,
153, 187, 195-236, 240, 247-
249, 252, 264, 268.

Antigone , 8

Apple of the Eye (The), 166
Arabia Deserta, 150
Archimedes, 270
Aristotle, 10, 255
Arnold (Matthew), 15, 16, 56,
213, 283-5
Arthur Press, 67.

Art of Being Ruled (The), 77,
. 155-6, 161, 161, 241, 262-3.
Atlantis , 47-52
Attila, 240

Autobiography of an ex-colour cd
Man (The), 28

Baudelaire, 52, 149, 151.
Beecher Stowe (Mis ), 41
Behaviourism, 157-66. 176, 226.
Bell (Clive), 100
Bergson, 158-60, 169, 176-7,
184, 226, 241.

Berkeley (Bishop), 253.

Berman (Louis), 135, 157-64,
168-70, 176.

Bim and Bom, 266-68.
Bonaparte (Napoleon), 133.
Borah (Senatoi), 221.

Boigia, 244, 246
Bosanquet, 7.

Bottomley (Horatio), 129
Bouddha riran/, 52.

Bradley, 7

Burnouf (Kugtaie), 294
Bui ton, 55
Butler (Samuel), 16
Butt (Clara), 106.

Byron (Loid), 146, 152, 257,
270

Caird, 101

Carnarvon (Lord), 172
Celtic Literature , 285
Chaplin (Charlie), 230.

Cliekov, 196

Churchill (Winston), 221.
Clarendon Press, 291, 294.
Clark (Sir William), 24.

67 mold, 261.

Hose (Upton), 58, 62, 259
Cloyne (Bishop of), 105
< 'onquest of Mexico, 299
4 Corasmm and the Parrots
186-90, 261
Cortez, 124.

Costello (Dolores), 26.

Creatine Evolution, 158-9, 176,
226

Criterion , 259

Daily Mail , 260.

Daily Telegraph, 24
Dark Laughter, 144, 187, 196-
215, 220, 239, 264
Dark Princess , 29-43, 46-7, 51,
85, 273

Darwinism, 158.

Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, 85

Decline of the West , 179.

301

PALEFACE

Defense de V Occident , 256.
Dickens, 205, 225, 229
IHthy rambic Spectator (The),
184

Dominik (Hans), 47, 52, 58.
Doughty, 55, 150
Dubois (Abb4), 291 -6.

Du Bois (W. E B ), 23, 27, 29,
41, 50, 281.

Emstein, 106
Eliot (T S ), 259
Emperor Jones, 64
Enemy (The), 200
Evening Standard, 250
Evolution of Theology, 101

Family II ei aid, 44
Fcnunore Coopei, 195
Fine Clothes for the Jew, 28
Fire m the Flint (The), 28
Flight, 28
Fo'melsaday , 28
Ford (Henry), 236-7, 268
Forum , 63.

Fourier. 245
France (Anatole), 190.

Freud, 138, 184, 203, 207-8,
220, 238, 240
Fry (Roger), 100.

Ffalop-Miller (Rene), 182-3, 241,
264-8.

Gandhi, 296, 299.

Gauguin, 52, 149, 151, 209, 21 1
212, 244

Gobineau, 53, 55.

Goethe, 67, 77.

Goodly Fere (The), 241
Green (T. 11.), 7-16, 21-2, 79,
76, 88-92.

Gulnon, 255.

Hamlet , 58.

Hartmann (Von), 177*

Hardy, 151.

Hayes (Roland), 65.

Hearn (Lafcadio), 151
Hegel, 7

Hemingway (Ernest), 144, 200-
202

Hindu Manners , Customs and
Ceremonies, 291-4
Hodge (Rev B. G ), 135.
Huxley (Aldous), 52, 59, 63

Ido, 279

‘ Indians and Enteitamment,*
174

Inge (Dean), 221, 259.
Institutes, 13, 70
Intellectual isme de Saint -
Thomas (//), 254.

4 I Want to Know Why,* 223-
233, 238

James (Henry), 131-2.

Jesting Pilate, 59-62.

Johnson (Doctor), 105
Joyce (James), 204-7-
loyful Wisdom, 150.

Jung, 166

Kandinsky, 33
Knopf, 2, 28, 29, 43.

Ku Klux Klan, 37, 299.

Lady Luch, 28.

Lai son (Nella), 43-6, 56.
Lawrence (D. H.), 31, 95, 97,
111, 120, 135, 146-7, 153-4,
157-8, 166, 169-98, 200, 203-
204, 211, 215, 221-2, 234,
240, 247-9, 252, 264
Levine (Mr ), 299
Lily, 28.

Lion and the Fox (The), 283-5.

302

INDEX

Livingstone, 65, 151.

Locke (Alain), 63-6.

Loin des Blonde a, 52-5
Loom of Youth (The), 297
Luther (Mai tin), 131-2
Jjynn Telegram N cws, 130

Mademoiselle Juhe, 152.

Magie Noire , 52.

Maine (Sir llemy). 87, 180
Marx (Kail), 119, 187-8, 244
Mas&is, 256
Matisse, 33-4.

Mannas, 91.

Mayo (Miss), 128, 289-300
Mayoi of Cork, 284
Mencken, 2, 111-12, 113-19,
123, 127-37, 139, 160, 198,
282, 298
Metropolis , 219.

Mind and Face of Bolshevism,
182.

Mceurs , Institutions et Cere-
monies des peoples de VJnde ,
. 29?

Moh^re, 58
Montesquieu, 273
Morand (Paul), 52.

Mornings m Mexico , 95, 111,
147, 153-4, 157, 169, 174-96,
198, 200, 204, 234.

Moses, 131-2.

Mother India , 27, 128, 289-300
Mozart, 279

Muller (Dr. Max), 293-4.
Mussolini, 106.

Nathan, 116.

Negro Drawings , 28.

Newton, 74, 102-3, 106, 150.
New York Herald , 260-1.
Nietzsche, 53, 67, 146, 150.
digger Heaven , 30, 153.
Noa-Noa, 212, 244.

Nobili (Roberto de*), 294.
Novarro (Ramon), 26.

Obsenrr, 146.

Paul, 27, 86.

Paul (Lady Dean), 136
Petty fer, 28

Philosophy of the Unconscious,

177

Picasso, 33-4.

Pitt, 74
Pizarro, 124.

Plato, 13, 90
Plomei, 2, 23, 28, 280-1.

Poe (Edgai Allan), 137, 140
Poor White, 216-22.

Porgir, 61

Pound (Ezra), 145, 241.
Praxiteles, 35.

Prescott, 299.

Prolegomena to Ethics, 7, 92.
Psychoanalysis, 161, 166, 177,
240

Quid sand, 28, 43-6.

Radio Times, 103.

Raucat (Thomas), 52-5
Relativity, 166

Religion of Behaviow ism (The),
157

Revolt of Asia (The), 58, 85, 259.
Revolutionary Simpleton (The),
161

Rimbaud, 55, 149.

Rivers (Dr. W. H. R.), 164.
Robeson (Paul), 65.

Rousseau, 195, 225.

Rousselot (P4re Pierre), S.J.,
254.

Russell (Bertrand!, 100, 102-3,
106, 150, 194, 221.

308

PALEFACE

Sage, 27.

Safar’t Return (The), 28
Saint-Simon, 245.

Salvation Army, 134, 273
Schopenhauer, 67, 177
Shakespeare, 58, 74, 131
Shaw (G. B ), 82, 146, 221, 246,
269-70, 284-5.

Shelley, 152, 270
'Sherwood Lawrence,’ 111,
198.

Sinclair Lewis 111, 114, 116,
128

Society of Jesus, 220
Socrates, 122, 148.

Solomon, ‘ mx - cylinder sport,’
135.

Solon, 220.

Hons and Lovers, 180-1.
Spongier, 122-3, 176-9, 242-3,
252, 256.

Star Chamber, 220
Stem (Gertrude), 207, 224.
Stevenson (R. L ), 149-51.
Stoddard (Lothrop), 64.
Story-Teller’ e Story, 95, 203,
233-4.

Strindberg, 146, 152.
Strindberg's Systrar Bcratta,
146.

’ Suicide as a Symptom,’ 163.

Templars, 149, 220. '

Terre (La), 206-7.

Time and Tide, 285.

Time and Western Man, 157,

176 .

Tolstoi, 151.

Torrmts of Spring, 145, 200-2.

Triumph of the Egg (The), 223-
233.

Tutankamen, 172.

Twain (Mark), 215.

Ulysses, 205-6

Uwle Tom's Cabin, 40-1, 227

Valentino, 233
Valdry (Paul), 259.

Vanity Fair, 131.

Vecbten (van), 29, 30, 153.
Versailles Treaty, 276
Vinci (Leonardo da), 123.
Virginians (The), 138.

Vision of Judgment, 148, 257.
Volapuc, 67-8, 280, 285-6.
Volstead Act, 133

Watson (Professor), 158, 162,
166.

IKean, Blues (The), 28.

Wells, 261.

Wescott (Glenway), 166.
Whitehead, 178.

White Man and his Rivals (The),
259.

Whitman (Walt), 140-3, 145-6,
209, 212.

Wildrcat (The), 28.

Wise (Rabbi), 221.

Women tn Love, 180.

Wooing s of Jezebel, 28.

‘ Wush & Co.,’ 206.

Yerkes, 166.

Young India, 295.

Zola (Emile), 151, 202, 206-7.